#while simultaneously hoping he leaves after s2 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

henrysglock · 2 years ago

Text

Literally no one cares but I need to put the vision into words otherwise it'll eat me up. So.

I've been listening to The Ballad of Jane Doe on repeat lately (it scratches so many brain itches) and I can't help but think about what it might be like if it had been a pseudo-duet between Jane and John Doe (ignoring the plot of Ride The Cyclone, of course, singling the song out as a stand-alone song).

Thinking about the lyrics as an emotional dialogue of sorts, where Jane is monologuing to John, and John is non-verbally monologuing back to her (and us) through his expressions, thoughts, and actions.

Jane and John speaking to each other that way. Jane who can't remember who she is lamenting her amnesia to John, who she can't remember and who can't remember her either. Jane and John, who each know the other is important to them, but can't figure out why. Jane and John, drawn by gravity alone. Jane, pleading for her memories back, begging John to remember something, anything, because it feels like he should. John, lamenting that he doesn't remember her even though it feels like he should.

And of course this makes me want to craft a theory about s5 (just for my own fun tbh). It combines the "Will is being erased from the memory of every person who knows him/loves him" birthdaygate theory with s2 Will's memory loss during his possession.

I have a ficlet of sorts written about it below. it's kind of messy, and I'll be polishing it up a bit later and sticking it on ao3 for shits and giggles but...If you want to read my cringefail writing now, you are more than welcome to it.

but like y'know. if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. thanks!

Say we've got Will, wiped out by Henry, his memories either completely erased or completely hidden from him so that he no longer resists Henry. This happens in a major burst of energy emitted from the Upside Down, a shockwave of mental force from Henry. Will is locked out of his own memories. He's simultaneously wiped out of the memories of everyone who ever knew him and who happened to be in the blast radius...but ONLY the memories occurring AFTER his funeral in 1983. Will Byers existed once, but not anymore. Not since November 1983, certainly not in 1988.

In light of that, we have Will and the Party, who were investigating the Rifts as a team, being hit by Henry's blast and subsequently waking up together. It's El in the woods all over again. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin can't just leave this bewildered and clueless boy out in the semi-Upisde-Down wilderness alone, so they take him home, hoping someone will recognize him.

(I'm highlighting his "name" because it just feels so wrong to call Will by a different name without constantly reminding everyone that that's not his real name)

No one recognizes him, of course, and evidently even he doesn't know who he is. So, he becomes John. John Doe. The name fits like a shirt one size too small, a scarf wrapped too tightly. It's not like he knows any better, though. So...John it is.

History repeats itself. Something about this boy reminds Mike of his "dead" best friend (who, if we're being honest, he never really believed was dead). He doesn't tell John about Will, but he offers an olive branch, brings John one of the (slightly stale) bags of chips the group had stockpiled for special occasions. They talk, and the feeling that they should know each other grows. Mike sticks himself to John's side like a burr. For John, it feels like coming home, like a warm fire in the winter. For Mike, it feels like he know this boy, like reading a book you once read as a child, like a memory half-forgotten. It can't last.

John is struggling with this pattern of knowing things (like the fact that he loves Mike, that he'd give anything to stay by Mike's side) while being unable to understand why outside of "it feels right". Mike, meanwhile, is facing criticism for what the Party perceives as him trying to make John fill the Will-shaped hole that was torn in his life 5 years ago, without ever actually telling John about Will (maybe they're on to something there. Mike would never admit it, though). Mike begins to distance himself, and he doesn't tell John why. John notices, of course. He pushes it away, it's not like he even really knows Mike anyway. The tension and confusion can only grow so much before something gives.

(This bit is the scene I was thinking about, the beginning bit is just for context and backstory.)

Then one day in early November 1988, John feels a pull to the UD. He doesn't question it. Why should he? He marches himself right through a gate to pursue it. Mike can't lose this boy, his almost-Will, too. He chases after him, and the gate closes, locking them both in the Upside-Down alone.

While searching for the source of the pull, there's nothing to do but talk. Well, quietly regard each other and wait for the other person to speak.

John breaks first. He asks Mike, theorizes if this pull he feels coming from the hellscape is his soul. Where is his soul? Is it here, rotting alongside Hawkins? No soul, and no name, he laments. He feels like an imposter, a sham. Is he even a person at all? Was he ever a person? With no one to tell him, and no way of remembering on his own, he feels like a shell at best. Like the label "person" doesn't belong to him.

Mike watches and listens as he continues, quietly, sadly trailing just behind John. He tamps down the part of him that wants to swoop in and label him as Will, the part that wants to assign anything that ever was Will to this blank slate of a boy. It would be so easy for Mike to say "Wait, I know you! You're Will Byers!" and fill the gap for them both. If he didn't have to contend with the Party (and the Byers family, whose son/brother is still dead, for fucks sake), he would do it in a heartbeat. He would have Will back, in a sense. He would spend eternity loathing himself for it, for imposing Will on this boy (for betraying Will). He doesn't think he'd regret it, though, and if he thinks about it hard enough...he doesn't really think Will (perfect, angelic Will, too good, taken too soon, has it really been 5 yea--) would hold it against him either.

John turns to Mike, visibly upset. He tells Mike that he feels like Mike should know something, that maybe he does know something, that maybe he's just refusing to say it.

"Why won't you just tell me who I am?" he questions, "Shouldn't you know? You should know me, Mike. You and I...We feel like an old song, one that someone heard on the radio once and almost forgot, but not just yet. One that's going to keep lingering until we figure out what it is. Only us. You and me, forever, eternally, John and," he gestures vaguely at Mike, "Jane Doe."

John immediately realizes the implications of his words. He turns away, heart stuttering in his chest. He didn't mean for it to be so obvious. The way it sounded. The way he feels, the things he wants. The way Mike might take it, like he's saying they're soulmates or something. The way he maybe, kind of (totally) meant it. He turns his frustration towards the situation, but his ranting is still directed at the only other person present: Mike.

"I just want to know why, Mike. I mean...If this is how I die, Mike...Why be left with no family and no friends? If I die here, I'll get no celebration, just the consolation that time will eat us all in the end. If I died...who would care? And whatever this," he gestures between them, "is? It'll be just another sad, forgotten song that no one knows. That's just how it goes! Just 'Jane' and me, forever, eternally, John fucking Doe!"

Mike winces as John's voice rings out in the empty street, his desperation and frustration echoing into the spore-riddled air. He places a hand on John's shoulder, and John turns to him, refusing to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled. I just...I clearly lived in Hawkins. Isn't there anyone who can tell me who I am?" John's voice drops to a whisper. "Does no one care?"

Mike can do nothing but surrender to the urge to pull John in for a hug, trying to convey how much he cares. He can feel John's shoulders shaking with silent sobs and pulls back just enough to tip John's face up by the chin, staring directly into his teary eyes. Mike brushes a thumb across a grimy tear track and abruptly notices how close their faces are. They've been in the Upside Down for two full days now. They're filthy. He doesn't care.

"You must think I'm crazy. I sound crazy," John murmurs, breaking their eye-contact to stare blankly at a button on Mike's shirt.

Mike's breath catches, and he immediately shakes his head, still cupping John's cheek. He replies in the gentlest of tones, "No. No, no, no. I would care. I do care. You're not crazy, John, but even if you were...Well, we'd go crazy together, then."

John's eyes snap up to Mike's, the hazel meeting mahogany in a moment of glorious recognition. He's heard that before. Someone said it to him once. Someone he loved, someone who meant the world to him. Someone who...loved him, perhaps. A hazy picture forms in his mind, a boy in a tan jumpsuit with a dark hair and dark eyes, freckles splashed across his sloping nose.

"Crazy...together," he whispers, processing the words, how they feel in his mouth. They're still only inches apart. John can feel Mike's breath on his face. That boy couldn't be anyone but Mike. John is certain of it; he's never been more certain of anything.

"It's you. I know you, Mike. I know you. I...I remember you. It can't be anyone but you," John chokes out, barely audible, his voice thick with tears and wonder as the memory sharpens.

Mike stares at John, eyes alight in equal parts confusion and intrigue. "It...can't be anyone but me? You remember me? You mean..." He trails off, mind whirring as he attempts to catch the thread connecting John's statements.

"Mike. A tan jumpsuit, 'Venkman' stitched into the upper left side. In your basement. You said we'd go crazy together," John chuckles wetly, shaking his head, "It couldn't have been anyone but you. It could never be anyone but you."

Mike knows he's missing something, a vital piece of the puzzle. His eyes dart across John's tear-streaked face, brows furrowed as he searches desperately for a clue.

Then John smiles at him. It's a small, delicate thing, filled with nothing but adoration. That's his smile, Mike thinks offhand. And then it clicks. The missing piece snaps into place. That's his smile. The only person who ever smiled at Mike like that was Will.

Mike shudders with the force of his gasp as his entire reality shifts, the events of the past months slipping neatly into context. "You...How..." His voice drops to the barest of whispers, afraid that saying it any louder would shatter the dreamlike moment, "Will?"

The name settles into John's bones like gravity. The shirt fits right, the scarf loosens from around his neck. Will. He's Will. He nods at Mike, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks. They stare at each other, adrift in the revelation.

It feels like an eternity. It's a split second. Mike moves first, surging towards Will in pure need. They meet in the middle, Will's hands tangling in Mike's dark hair, and Henry--no--Vecna's curse crumbles away. Every stolen memory returns in a rush of light, swing-sets and hospitals and a painting in the back seat of a dusty pizza van (You're the heart, Mike--) flashing past in a dizzying handful of seconds.

They part for air, and Mike drops his head to bury his face in Will's shoulder. He's trembling with the force of the entire experience, but also with the realization of what he just did. He feels Will pull him closer, hold him tighter, and he allows himself to lean into the embrace, his shaky knees finally giving way. A sob tears itself from his throat and the floodgates open, fear and grief and longing burbling up from his chest and out through his eyes in burning tears.

They sink to the ground, Will refusing to let go for even a second as the love of his life breaks down in his arms. He hushes Mike gently, and reassures him, "It's okay, Mike, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"You were dead, I remember grieving you," Mike chokes out between sobs, "He took you from me. You were gone for so long, Will--"

Will cuts him off, "No, Mike. I was never gone. I was hidden in plain sight, but you found me. Again. You always find me, Mike, no matter where or who I am."

With a shuddering breath, Mike slowly moves to gaze up at Will, as if he's afraid that this is all a dream that could dissipate if he moves too fast. "You're really here...You were never gone...It was all him. And--and you..." He trails off, nervous to speak the words.

Will smiles down at Mike, eyes warm and bright. He knows. He also knows he doesn't need to say it, but he wants to. "Yes, Mike. I love you too."

An astonished giggle bubbles out of Mike at Will's words, elation replacing the grief that had made a home inside his heart since Henry's attack. "Holy shit, Will..." Mike stares up at Will from his place in his arms with starry eyes, sniffling quietly as reality fully settles in his mind.

"I know, Mike," Will reassures him quietly, using his shirtsleeve to wipe the tears from Mike's cheeks. "It's okay, you don't need to say anything. I already know."

The pair lingers in the moment, unwilling to let it go. There are battles to be fought, a hellish dimension to escape, a demon of a man to destroy. For now, though, they'll sit huddled together on the damp, cold ground of the Upside Down and allow themselves to bask in the small sphere of warmth and light they've created.

#this is my first written piece. be gentle.#i'm *not* a creative writer by trade so like. do with this what you will.#byler #byler fic #byler fanfiction #byler fanfic #rated T #i guess? for cursing and angst?#angst with a happy ending #byler angst #will byers #mike wheeler

23 notes · View notes

chainofclovers · 3 years ago

Text

Ted Lasso 2x8 thoughts

I am so lucky that the creators of Ted Lasso decided to make this entire show specifically for me. #blessed

If last week felt like a bit of breathing room (albeit tense, poignant, character-progressing breathing room) with distinct narrative lines, this week’s episode was a chaotic yet tightly-written swirl of pain and hope and sadness! No neat subject headers for this one, y’all. Just my brain and heart in the inadequate form of a bulleted list. It is the medium available to me at this time.

I am going to remember the moment when Ted calls Sharon and tells her his father killed himself for the rest of my life.

(I could say a bunch of stuff about his face and what he says and how he tries to hide his tears from Beard right after and how insanely much I adore this character and ahhhhhhhh but I’m just going to leave that scene there in our collective memories.)

Jamie. JAMIE. Higgins has given some great advice about love on this show, but his musings about his up-and-down relationship with his own father were not helpful in the context of Jamie’s dad, who is an abusive piece of shit. I really adore that all of the main AFC Richmond staff members are realistically a bit hit-or-miss with their advice and life philosophies (some are mostly miss this season, of course).

And I am completely in awe of the moment when Jamie punches his father. The way he just stands there after Beard kicks his dad out of the locker room. The way you can hear a pin drop. And Roy—Roy who is learning in so many areas of his life about his influence on people, learning that the things he needs aren’t necessarily the same as the things other people need—is the one to cross the room and hug him. Hold him, really, with the tenderness Ted used when he hugged Rebecca outside the gala in 1x4. God.

I’ve thought a lot about how s1 was about giving people a soft place to land. There’s always an angel there when you need one. There’s always an opportunity to be kind. If you look for someone, you find them. If you look for the good in someone, you find the good. And as everyone works through their individual journeys in s2, that can’t always be the case anymore. But there are still so many moments of angels on this show, and it’s not about chance and serendipity and fate [not that it was about that in s1] but about the effort it takes to become someone who can be there for someone else. Or who can be there for yourself. I’m so proud of Jamie for physically fighting back against his father. I’m so proud of Roy for being the one who recognized what Jamie needed.

I have every feeling in the world about how Ted is almost totally frozen both times (s1 and s2) he witnesses Jamie’s father abusing him. In s1, he was still there for Jamie after, and I have every reason to believe he’ll be there for Jamie after this incident as well, but that frozen stance HURTS. He’s in so deep with his pain about his own father that it’s like he physically cannot snap out of it to act in the moment. It seems entirely outside of his control, and it breaks my heart, because Ted wants so badly to be a good father, a good coach, a good friend, a good partner, a good patient. He’s there for people in all kinds of ways, even in his current less-than-capable state. He takes care of Sharon post-concussion and even gets her a new bike! During the disastrous match at Wembley his coaching is ineffectual and everything is chaos but he’s the last one standing on the pitch! But this really awful thing keeps happening to Jamie and Ted is just…frozen in the face of it. Like one of those nightmares where you’re running in place.

The frozen-in-place nightmare also kind of applies to the way the total separation between Ted and Rebecca feels, too. I have never for a moment doubted the writers’ intentions in setting these characters up as soulmates on parallel journeys, and I’m actually really digging (on a story level) how disconnected they are right now. It is IMPRESSIVE that their absence in each other’s lives feels like such a glaring loss, one we cannot forget even as there are so many other things happening onscreen. It is 100% not just shipper goggles making me process information about Ted while thinking about Rebecca and information about Rebecca while thinking about Ted. I know there are a lot of really angry and frustrated people in the fandom right now (both T/R shippers and T/R antis and non-shipping fans who don’t get why s2 is different from s1) and while I understand being frustrated by choices characters make, and frustrated by the feelings the show makes us feel that we just want to feel more of or less of, I continue to agree with pretty much every narrative choice happening right now.

Agreeing with the narrative like this?! This is such a unique experience for me as a viewer—to feel like I’m on a ride that is at once absolutely wild and incredibly sensible and well-crafted, and to feel simultaneously completely invested and anticipatory and speculative but also totally willing to trust where it goes. I long for Ted and Beard to really talk. I long for Ted and Rebecca to stop missing each other. I long for Roy to have a serious conversation with Ted about what’s happening with him. I long for Keeley to find a vocation, something that drives her beyond her projects. I long for so many things! But I wouldn’t long for them if this show was less good. If the show was less good, I wouldn’t have a wish list a mile long because I wouldn’t be so attuned to the details and potential lurking in every scene. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SHOW, I CANNOT HANDLE IT, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

(To that end, a great deal of the Ted Lasso tag and so many Twitter reactions reactions to the show feel super stressful right now and I am kind of just trying not to look?! I love this fandom so much because of the amazing conversations that happen and because of brilliant fic and because there are some awesome people I never would have encountered were it not for this show. That little bubble is wonderful and I’d stay in this fandom no matter what in order to keep experiencing those things. But fans’ catastrophic reactions to every little thing that happens, every little choice a character makes that isn’t the “perfect” choice? The takeaway that the writers—on this show of all shows—wake up in the morning ready for another day of torturing shippers rather than another day of writing a beautiful story they genuinely want to write? I do not enjoy those parts at all. I would like to opt out of those parts. I’m having such a magical experience watching this show and talking about this show and listening about this show and writing about this show with a variety of people who feel all kinds of ways. I truly wish I could somehow transfer the energy of this experience onto all the people who are hating it right now. I don’t mind at all that people are having vastly different reactions to this show and are sharing their honest feelings, including the really angry ones (I can appreciate something and disagree with it!), and I get that sometimes the language of fannish reactions is intentionally, ironically hyperbolic. But there feels like this very serious trend of people legitimately thinking writers on this show are targeting shippers and have lost respect for their characters, and I just feel like an alien from another planet when I see that stuff. I guess I just feel like people make art because they want their art to be visible to other people and to themselves, but that doesn’t typically involve specifically catering to or torturing a subset of that audience?)

I am more fascinated by Sharon Fieldstone than ever before. I have been running through every single action with her and Ted so many times. The confirmation that she’s living in club-provided housing (that could not look more different from Ted’s club-provided flat). Ted clearly noticing the many bottles. Sharon’s face while she tries to casually recycle them. (Sharon could legitimately have a more problematic relationship with alcohol than Ted does, and I find that extremely interesting and am very curious to find out what happens there.) Sharon leaving him voice notes while she’s concussed, probably because she’d been thinking about him shortly before the accident. The way Ted calls her and does all the funny voices and it’s not frustrating like all the times he uses his silliness and allusions to deflect during their prior conversations because this time, those behaviors are just a part of him showing care for another person. The way they stretch each other, and Ted is still wrong about the things he’s been wrong about, but they both grow all the same.

While it is pretty much impossible for me to imagine that this show would include an actual romantic relationship between Ted and Sharon (it would be beyond unethical even if they could write it well, and Sharon in particular is so professional and committed to her work, and it would erase so much of the powerful message about the importance of seeking therapy from a professional who is not your friend or partner, and I would totally hate it), watching this episode was the first moment I had this queasy little feeling that it’s possible that Ted could end up developing really complicated feelings about Sharon since, at this point, he’s been honest with her about things he’s hardly spoken about before and you can really form an attachment to people you feel safe with in a new way. (I mean, I’m sure Michelle knows what happened with Ted’s father, but I’m not even certain if Beard does.) He’s so broken right now, and Sharon is such a great person and so different from anyone else in his life (even though Rebecca is also different, and Beard is also different, and Roy is also different, and so on), that I could see things getting really fuzzy for him. I continue to have faith in the way the storylines on this show are handled. I’m just. Putting this here.

(In saying that, though, I also wanna make it really clear that I don’t just automatically assume anytime a new female character is introduced that they’re going to end up becoming a romantic complication. Like, Phoebe is allowed to have a teacher who is an attractive woman and AFC Richmond is allowed to have a sports psychologist who is an attractive woman and Keeley is allowed to talk to Jamie Tartt without it threatening what she has with Roy and all these people can exist as human beings without the introduction of romantic drama.)

Isaac gives every player one haircut per season, OH MY GOD. The JOY during the haircut scene. YES.

KEELEY AND REBECCA. Their text thread. The affirming video call right before Rebecca goes into the restaurant. The way Keeley sits all snuggled up against Rebecca in her office.

I was pretty thoroughly spoiled for the Sam and Rebecca plot through 2x8, and I was bracing for something far more problematic and tortured than what happens in this episode. The words I would use to describe their scenes: awkward, cute, cringy, and understandable. There are a million reasons why this relationship isn’t sustainable, but I felt completely understanding of both their choices here. This show has a lot of thesis statements, but I keep going back to the idea from 2x1 that there are people who enter your life to help you get to the next point, and I think it’s entirely possible that Sam and Rebecca will mutually be that for each other.

I find comparisons between Rupert and Rebecca super upsetting. There are absolutely meaningful things to say about the irony of ending up in a situation with an uncomfortable resemblance to certain taboo elements of an ex’s situation. But that ex is abusive and manipulative and cruel and Rebecca has exhibited NONE of those behaviors, and it makes me really sad to think that people feel that the writers on this show have betrayed Rebecca in giving her this storyline.

As always, I reserve the right to keep blathering about this show. I’ve had a headache for a couple of days, but my head is also so full of 2x8 thoughts that I couldn’t keep them in even if the circumstances for writing this were not ideal. I kind of hate that I’ve included frustrated fandom thoughts within the analysis of what I felt was an absolutely gorgeous, complicated, heartbreaking, near-perfect episode of television, but if ya can’t be a little dramatic on your own tumblr while you’re feeling raw and under the weather, where can ya?

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #meta by me #ted lasso 2x8 #a lesbian watches ted lasso #cw: suicide mention #cw: alcohol abuse mention

95 notes · View notes

perhaps-in-anotherdream · 3 years ago

Text

[CN] S2 Victor- Right Now Is The Time (Eng Translation)

⌚ Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a company project that is yet to be released in the global server! ⌚

NOTE: This post features S2 Victor and MC, and takes place some time in between post-Chapter 4 and pre-Chapter 10. And it’s the 4th company project. However, it doesn’t contain any spoilers regarding the S2 storyline. I’ve listed the notable storyline mentions at the end of the post, so no worries about storyline spoilers! (◍•ᴗ•◍)

ー

[ SECTION 1 ]

The day before the show is officially about to be filmed, I’m setting up the apparatuses in the lobby of LFG.

The company’s new variety event “Right Now is The Time” is a workplace observation related reality show, filming the internship of five talented students working at LFG.

According to the script settings, they have to pass a number of tests with the aim of obtaining a formal offer.

In this process, we hope to be able to display young peoples’ ardent love towards life and strive towards improving themselves simultaneously.

The format of this show has been introduced via overseas. I have spent a long time in obtaining the copyright, and also spent quite a long time in convincing Victor to set the filming location at LFG.

Now that the progress is continuing without a flinch, and the filming is officially about to be started, I also can’t refrain from heaving a sigh of relief.

MC: Master, remember to take away all the wires from here when you leave later. Otherwise, the property owner will definitely say something when he sees them on his way to the office at 6 AM.

As I walk around in the construction site, I lower my head to reply to the messages in the group from time to time. Suddenly, as I turn my head, I almost bump into the person standing behind me head-on.

MC: Victor.... what are you doing here?

Victor pulls away from me slightly, sweeping his gaze at the several cameras hanging high up on the wall.

Victor: This is LFG. What do you mean what I’m doing here?

MC: ....No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, why are you still at the office now. It’s already one o’clock.

Victor: Just got finished. What have you got up here?

MC: It’s nothing. The master will be done in a moment. It certainly won’t affect your company’s regular work tomorrow.

Victor seems to be about to say something when an abrupt call pops up on my phone. I embarrassedly duck my head at him, and tap on the call button.

Anna: MC, are you still at LFG? We have just gone through the script, and kept feeling that we won’t be able to shoot so much in one day. We have to pick out some contents to delete.

Anna: How about you do a round trip to the office, and we go over it one last time?

MC: Okay. I’m also done here anyway. I’ll go back right now. Are you guys hungry? I could buy some late-night snacks and bring them up.

Anna: No need for late-night snacks. We will try to get it done within the shortest possible time.

MC: Alright. I’ll be at the office within half an hour.

I hang up the phone, and turn my head to look at Victor. Even before I can say anything, he opens his mouth immediately.

Victor: I’ll drive you to the office.

MC: It’s okay. I can go back on my own. It’s too late already. You’d better go back and rest.

Victor: You also know it yourself that it’s too late.

He stares at me for a couple of moments, and seems to sigh. Then he takes out the car key from his pocket, motioning me to walk towards the elevator.

Victor: I happen to be going to the airport. I’ll drop you off on the way.

Victor: I’ll be away on a business trip these two days. If you need anything, look for Goldman directly. He will help you in arranging it.

MC: OK. But....

Did he set off for going to the airport in the middle of the night, and is going to attend a meeting on the next day straight away? Although I’ve always known that his work intensity is like this....

Victor: But what?

I fish out a picture from my phone and send it to him, smiling at him jestingly.

MC: I’ve sent you a phone wallpaper.

There are only six words written on the black background with white characters: “Working-class people, working-class souls.”

[ Note: It’s actually sort of a running joke in Chinese “打工人, 打工魂” (dǎ gōng rén, dǎ gōng hún) about the distress of the working class people :(. It has a rhymed version of it in English, but I’m not going to mention it here cause I’m not sure if I should be typing the word haha~ ]

MC: Although I know you are a capitalist, but you are able to understand the spirit.

MC: CEO Victor~ mutual encouragement!

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 2 ]

Before Victor returns from the business trip, I specifically give him a call, wanting to arrange for one of the outstanding performing interns in the show to pick him up at the airport.

I really can’t bear to miss on a good filming material like this.

Victor is speechless on the phone for about 10 seconds before he finally sighs.

Victor: The audiences with little common sense would know that, it’s not within the turns of an intern to pick-up at the airport.

MC: Yes, yes, yes, it’s certainly not within the turns of an intern to pick-up the CEO at the airport. But CEO....

MC: You have great compassion towards considering the ratings of my shows. And you also know how important your appearance for this show is....

MC: You promised me, that you could make an appearance in the trailer for at least 3-5 seconds.

Victor: But according to my understanding of you, when you have a great amount of source materials, it’s impossible to have only 3-5 seconds.

MC: This is no surprise.

MC: You already knew this, and you still promised me. It’s clear that this 3-5 seconds is not the important point. The important point is making the appearance in the appropriate way.

MC: I think going with this pick-up method is very appropriate!

MC: Just be yourself. Whether you want to speak or not, what to say or how to say it, it’s all up to your pleasure, CEO Victor. Is this OK?

An almost inaudible sigh can be heard from Victor over the phone.

Victor: OK. I’ll arrive at 4 PM on the day after tomorrow. If you want to film the pick-up, make the arrangements in advance.

MC: The arrangements will certainly be made adequately for you! I’ll ask Goldman for the flight number.

Victor: Your tone sounds like you’re going to make arrangements with great fanfare.

MC: It’s just.... such as, since it’s a cameo, what kind of clothing and make-up....

Victor: No need.

MC: ....

MC: Yep, yep, yep. No need. CEO Victor will win the show as soon as he steps in front of the lens of the camera. We focus on the authenticity.

Victor: I still have matters to attend to. Let’s leave it here.

MC: You go ahead. I’ll get in touch with you the moment there is some progress!

Since I’ve received the special authority to shoot, I naturally arrange everything up frantically.

On the day of picking up at the airport, I sit in front of the monitor from beginning to the end, and stare at it from the first second Victor gets into the car to the final second. The result is beyond expectation—

Unexpectedly, he and the intern in charge of picking up hasn’t spoken a word.

The big brother in charge of filming laughs out loud as he looks at it: Playing this segment of 3-5 seconds would do it. Perhaps the audiences are going to feel like they are stuck in the frame.

MC: [ Talking to herself ] ....Victor wouldn’t be so stingy to really just give me a few seconds of materials, would he?

I wait until the filming clearance carrying great doubts, and is just intending to look for the intern in charge of picking up and ask a few questions, but that person disappears in the blink of an eye.

After a while, he comes over and finds me, additionally carrying a paper medicine bag in his hand.

Intern: Sister MC, CEO Victor spoke a few words with me after getting off the car. I felt his voice sounded a little hoarse. Would you like to send this to him?

MC: A little hoarse?

Intern: Mm, it felt like a cold. Luckily, we have also been on a project with CEO Victor in the past 2 days. Director Zhang said he even received an email from CEO Victor at 3 o’clock last night. The temperature difference in these two days was so huge and CEO Victor hasn’t rested well. So he might have caught a cold.

A wave of worry floats to my heart as I carry the medicine bag in my hand.

This person.... still doesn’t understand when he starts to feel unwell, nor does he know to make a sound about it.

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 3 ]

I knock on the door to Victor’s office, and there is no response for a long time.

This kind of situation is very rare. I feel a little worried, and twist the doorknob to push open a little crack.

Victor leans back in his chair, dozing off. I haven’t pushed the door too loudly, but it still wakes him up.

He straightens up his back, and reaches out his hand to pinch the space between his eyebrows as he looks at me.

I feel somewhat very bad, and simply walk straight over.

MC: ....Did I wake you up? The intern said your voice sounded a little hoarse. So he bought some medicines for you, and asked me to bring them to you.

MC: Are you OK?

I can’t help stepping forward, and reaching out my hand to place it on his forehead. He has just woken up, his reaction clearly hasn’t come over, and he doesn’t even frown almost subconsciously like ordinary times.

MC: Fortunately, it’s not a fever.

Victor adjusts his suit, picks up the cup, and takes only one sip before putting it down again.

Victor: It’s no big deal.

....His voice indeed is very hoarse, and one can tell it’s a cold just by hearing it.

I rummage through the bag of medicines, and inside are throat-smoothening lozenges, indigowoad roots, fever patches– everything needed is available. It can be clearly seen that the person who bought the medicines was considerate and very attentive.

— Someone might be able to take over the job from Goldman in the future.

I eye up his cup once again. Thinking that the water inside surely have gotten cold a long time ago, I smoothly tear open a bag of indigowoad roots right away, and give it to Victor to brew up.

He actually doesn’t refuse, lifts up the cup with his both hands, letting the warm steam rising from the cup to blow on his face.

It’s rare for me to see him with the appearance of being unable to lift up his spirits like this, and I truly can’t help but frown.

MC: Why is it that the first thing you do after getting off the plane is coming back to the office, and not give yourself even a day of sick leave?

Before Victor can say anything, his phone sitting on the table starts vibrating.

I look at the lock screen illuminated by the light. Surprisingly, it really is that picture of “Working-class people, working-class soul” I have given him earlier.

Victor ignores the phone, and lowers his head to drink two sips of the indigowoad roots.

Victor: There are two more meetings in the evening, and the time was fixed already a long time ago.

The implication is that, it’s not happening.

My very soul is shaken: When the capitalists work with all their might like this, what qualifications do I have to not make great efforts.

MC: ....If this segment of yours is included in the show, LFG’s stock price will have to rise by at least three limit ranges.

Victor casts his everyday speechless expression at me. Judging from this reaction, it must have gotten a little bit slower due to the dizzy state he has been in just a moment ago.

I set my heart down, and shove my both hands inside the pockets of my coat.

MC: If you’re all right, I’ll go on and continue to keep an eye on the progress. There are throat-smoothening lozenges in that medicine bag. Remember to take them if your throat feels uncomfortable.

Victor nods, and as soon as I turn my head, he picks up the phone.

MC: Remember—

I suddenly recall when I have walked to the door, and smile at him as I lean against the crack of the door.

MC: To drink plenty of hot water!

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 4 ]

Today’s filming goes on till 10 o’clock, and wraps up without a hitch.

I heard Goldman say that Victor’s meeting has also adjourned about at this same time. I buy some food for him and bring them over. As expected, he really hasn’t eaten again.

He is probably tired, and doesn’t hold it against my meddling in other people’s business, nor does he mock my poor order.

Just as I have set the four dishes on the coffee table, he then picks up the chopsticks on his own.

MC: Chicken, fish, less salt, less oil, and high protein.

MC: How’s this? This sick meal is still not bad, right? [1]

Without making any assessment, Victor picks up the rice, and tastes two bites in order to show his affirmation.

Victor: How’s the filming of the show coming along?

MC: Surprisingly good.

When the topic of the interns who participated in the filming of the show is raised, I don’t know how am I supposed to praise them.

MC: Kids nowadays can be extremely quick-witted. They learn things both fast and well, and are also very savvy about interpersonal relationships....

MC: Each one of them are standard template for the business elite.

MC: There is this one intern who came to LFG on the first day, and the department manager called him to write a summary on the conference....

MC: He said straightforwardly that he didn’t know how to do it, and requested for someone to teach him.

MC: And at that time, we were even talking about it encircling behind the monitor.

MC: If it were up to the conventional thinking, the audience surely would have thought that he’d be stifling, be scarlet red in the face and enter the conference room trembling in fear.

MC: In the end, not only did he not have any of those, but was even very frank with his approach. This kind of self-confidence is too rare.

Victor suddenly laughs while eating.

Victor: Do you think they are all just like you?

MC: ....What’s wrong with me!

Victor: Always preferring to buff your way out.

MC: Am not!

Even if I really have, it was also a long time ago. Things are very different now.

MC: Anyway, not....

Victor is still smiling. His smile makes me feel that these few clearly light and bland dishes must be very tasty indeed.

Victor: Considering your opinion, they all possibly will get the offer smoothly?

MC: Of course.

MC: Trust me. They are all excellent. You were able to attract such a group of youngsters towards LFG, and have made the profit!

MC: And also after the show is broadcast, it will be a good thing for LFG’s publicity aspect too.

MC: Didn’t you say earlier that LFG’s Strategic Development Department wants to set up an image of high professionalism in the public’s eyes?

Victor: Since you are this set on heart about LFG’s future, you should be brought along to future meetings of the Strategic Development Department.

Victor: And give you the title of external consultant.

MC: I’ll come if I’m given the wages.

Hearing him speak in a voice a little more hoarse than in the afternoon, I think and know as well that he has spoken a lot during the meetings again. I get up to pour him a cup of hot water.

Victor doesn’t say anything, and carefully eats the food. Not a moment later, my phone rings out abruptly.

Kiki: Boss— I’ve something to ask you. How many minutes in total is the pilot episode going to run?

MC: Half an hour or so, I think. Take a look at the source material in use.

MC: ....Are you still at the office? It’s already half past ten. Didn’t I say you can take an early break today to rest.

Kiki: Alright, I’ll go back immediately. Boss, you should call it an early night too.

Victor puts down the bowl and chopsticks, and leisurely wipes his lips while shooting me an alarming glance.

Victor: It’s so late already. You’re not off work either.

Victor: And you still call someone else a workaholic?

[ Note: The phrase used here is “人家” (rén jia) which can be translated to other people/someone else. But it’s also used to referring “oneself” as “people/someone.” So basically here, Victor is saying how MC calls him a workaholic LOL. Similar to how the “a certain someone” phrase is often used in their conversation. ]

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 5 ]

I stare at Victor, and sigh in a manner as though I want to say something but am hesitating.

MC: But I came here to bring you dinner in the spirit of dedication based on “It is everyone’s duty to take care of the Boss.”

MC: Did you just classify this as autonomous overtime activity?

I hold out my hand towards him.

MC: How about you pay for the overtime?

Victor shoots me a glance, and simply purses his lips with a faint smile.

Victor: I don’t know if I can afford to pay the charges of the gold medal producer.

I laugh along with him, and raise my eyebrows imitating the way he usually does.

MC: If you can’t afford to pay, I can give you a discount.

As we are talking, Kiki sends me a rough cut of the video that’s going to be used in the pilot. I place my phone on the coffee table, and turn it in an angle that both Victor and I can see.

MC: Just in time. Let’s have a little look at the clip of the show with dinner.

This segment happens to be the scene when the interns were being interviewed.

At first glance, they all appear to be business elites clad in suits and with boundless prospects. But the tension in between waiting during the intervals is entirely visible to the unaided eye.

....Also there was a young girl, as a result of being too keyed-up, she even decided to memorize a piece of English text to loosen up for a while.

I watch with keen interest, and Victor looks at my gaze with keen interest.

Their expression and state of affairs– immediately makes me evoke all of that scene in one go, that time back then, when I stood in front of Victor.

Victor: What’s on your mind that you’re so engrossed in watching?

MC: Don’t you have a sense of resonance? Weren’t you like this when you were young?

Just as expected, Victor gives an expression of “Of course not.”

....Is the world so enormously uneven?

Victor bores through two more segments anyway, and the video happens to be onto the time when the interns were receiving their written notice of the internship prepared by the program team.

MC: Yesterday Anna discussed with me that this pilot segment is intended for setting up the keynotes for the show, and in what pattern the character are written here is very important.

MC: What we are thinking about at the moment is— Beginning from here on out, may we all have a luminous and sparkling future ahead of us with boundless prospects.

MC: What do you think?

Victor has been titling his head to the side throughout as he listens to my words, showing no expression of evaluation.

Victor: About what exactly to do on your shows, don’t you usually ask for less of my specific opinions?

I tap pause on the video, and the frame rests on the glass window outside the LFG building, reflecting off the blue sky and white clouds.

MC: This time it’s different. This group of youngsters are from LFG.

MC: You’ve worked so hard in creating LFG to have a platform so bright and beautiful....

MC: Isn’t it just in the hope that even more people will find broader future here.

Victor’s gaze remains calm and collected, and a smile has been gracing the corners of his lips all along.

It’s already very late at night. Seeing that Victor has also had his fill, I tidy up the coffee table at once, get up and gesture at him.

MC: Let’s go CEO. Time to get off work.

MC: I’ll drive you home.

Victor is clearly taken aback for a moment.

Victor: You’ll drive me?

I nod boldly and self-righteously.

MC: Goldman got off work already at an earlier time, and also greeted me just before leaving. You’ve taken the cold medicine tonight. I’m driving, okay.

Victor: ....

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 6 ]

My car is parked directly opposite the elevator. As soon as Victor steps out of the elevator, he walks straight over to the backseat, pulls open the car door, and hops in without saying a word.

I fasten my seatbelt in the driver’s seat, and can’t help from glancing over at the back seat.

MC: CEO Victor, generally speaking.... at times like this, you should be taking the passenger seat.

Victor looks down at his phone without even lifting his head for a bit.

Victor: I’m not used to with sitting in the passenger seat. [2]

MC: ....Fine.

After all, he is the CEO. It makes sense that he has never sat in the passenger seat before.

I suddenly recall the app-based taxi guidance, and repeat them without missing a word.

MC: Our trip is about to begin. Please fasten your seatbelt. Is the temperature inside the car fairly appropriate?

This time, Victor lifts up his head to look at me, his eyes laced with very obvious confusion.

Evidently, the CEO has almost never taken a taxi either.

Overjoyed, I drive the car out of the parking lot, then immediately lower half the car window, letting the unrestrained sweet night breeze of spring to blow in.

Victor hasn’t said anything all the way, typing down messages on his phone from time to time.

Halfway through the journey, Victor puts the phone back in his pocket, leans back in the seat and looks outside window, laughing in a lazy manner as though soliloquizing.

Victor: You are the person I know, who very rarely let me set down my work to rest.

I think back carefully— in fact, that was not the case. It’s just not in his memory. *[ clutches chest ]*

But now, it really isn’t my habit to speak up too much to persuade him into something. He has his own principles and reasons for everything he does....

MC: You won’t listen even if I said so anyway.

MC: Also.... work is a very important thing to you. I can understand that.

Half the side of Victor’s face is reflected on the dark tinted car window, and his eyes are casted towards me in alarm, within which are reflected the gorgeous neon lights of the city.

Victor: Does work have to be a very important thing?

The lights of the street lamps fall on the asphalt road. This road, carpeted with light, seems so far away that it doesn’t have an end.

MC: Mm.... work is a very important thing.

MC: Work is akin to flights of steps. By stepping up and standing in an even higher place, you can then do the things you want to do more.

MC: Perhaps back then, the CEO of LFG has also been just like these group of youngsters. Clad in a suit, standing at the starting point, and then he walked on his way to this day.

In the rearview mirror, Victor locks eyes with me meaningfully. This is an expression I’m familiar with, an expression that represents his tacit understanding.

Victor: Earlier, did you want to have me attend the show’s press conference?

I pick up on the keynote, and hurriedly get my spirits up.

MC: You agreed!

Hearing my absolutely certain tone, Victor smiles faintly.

Victor: I haven’t said anything yet.

MC: I still have some of that sharp workplace acumen, and don’t need to be told everything by the CEO to get it right. I can understand the spirit on my own.

Victor doesn’t say anything anymore, and he lowers the car window too. Seeing the night breeze messing up the fringes in front of his forehead, I’ve originally wanted to speak up, and remind him that he’s unwell and should refrain from blowing the wind....

On a second thought I feel, the breeze is very comfortable and is worth blowing.

Especially after constantly running around for several days, and after finally ending a busy and tiring day.

It’s worth blowing a little breeze, and having a look at this resplendent city.

◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──

[ SECTION 7]

The press conference has been arranged at a hotel under the banner of LFG. Victor has been invited to attend, and he sits in the VIP area off the stage.

I’ve arranged the sequence of process in advance. The only thing he needs to consider is that going up on the stage– next, saying a few words to make an official speech, and that will suffice.

But today’s situation is comparatively lively, and the reporters are clearly very interested in LFG itself as well.

As soon as Victor comes up on the stage, there is constant applause, and the “click-click-click” sound of taking photos nearly overpowers the clamors of the tide of people.

The host has tried several times to ask Victor, who has already finished his speech and is getting off the stage, but couldn’t find the appropriate opportunity to do so. Thereupon, I cast an inquiring glance.

I’ve just got up, wanting to stop the reporters, but Victor lifts up his hand— which means is that, it’s fine.

Victor invites the reporters to ask questions one by one— in a manner that, he is in a very good mood today, and nobody will be refused.

Reporter: CEO Victor, is there any serious consideration behind LFG choosing to collaborate with this kind workplace related variety show?

Victor: There aren’t any serious considerations. We simply feel that, every one of the employees working at LFG are excellent, and they are worthy of being seen by everyone.

Reporter: Excuse me, CEO Victor, do you have anything to say to these young people who have become a member of LFG?

After glancing at me faintly, Victor once again looks towards the press box, and opens his mouth unhurriedly, uttering the words that I have said in front of him before.

Victor: I hope that they will set sail on their journey from LFG, and have a luminous and sparkling future with boundless prospects.

When the applause rings out, I suddenly realize that– I, too, have apparently set sail on my journey clumsily under Victor’s wings, and then slowly walked on my way to this day.

Regardless of the time, the LFG he has created, the doors of this tremendous business empire is wide open to all dreams, waiting for young people, waiting for everyone.

The letters “LFG” have long since not only been the bearer of Victor’s expectations and prospects alone.

After walking through the entire sequence of events, the press conference is officially concluded.

As soon as the hotel brings up the wine and food for the buffet, I immediately offer my eager attention to Victor, busying myself with choosing the champagne to bring over to him.

MC: Is CEO Victor fairly satisfied with this press conference?

Victor takes the wine glass in my hand, and gently raises his hand to gesture at me.

Victor: This is your show, as long as the producer is satisfied with it– that will do.

From my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of the interns in the show being huddled together, taking selfies against the signature board at the doorway, and am instantly struck by an idea.

MC: Victor, why don’t you wish me a future with boundless prospects too, and give me a blessing for good luck.

With one hand in his pocket, Victor turns his head to look at me.

Victor: You’re already very luminous and sparkling. Do you still need to ask for this kind of blessing for good luck?

MC: The more the better.

A smear of smile hangs across the side of Victor’s lips, and he even mulls it over for a while.

Victor: In that case, I wish that you.... can always sparkle luminously, at all times.

I’m able to intuitively grasp a little bit of the implied meaning within his words. Accordingly, I draw closer to Victor.

MC: Just like you?

Victor slightly lowers his eyes to regard me, his gaze- carrying within them a smile lands on my face.

Victor: If you want to, you can.

◇──◆──◇

[ EXTRA TIDBITS: ]

[1] - MC is referring to the time Victor was in hospital in CH 4.

[2] - Victor mentions this event during the car tampering incident of CH 10, when MC told him that he’d get penalty for running the red light, and he replies with- that it’s fine cause he has a driver LOL.

──

#Fluffy goodness for the heart (*´ω｀*)#pardon my thousand screenshots >.<#mlqc cn #mlqc victor #mlqc li zeyan #mlqc spoilers #mr love victor #mldd victor #mlqc #mr love queen's choice #li zeyan #李泽言 #恋与制作人 #love and producer #mlqc s2 #mlqc season 2 #mlqc translations #The anon who asked for it- I hope you see this~ ♡

52 notes · View notes

mikereads · 3 years ago

Text

After they released a first look/ concept art I had an idea. Every season the main poster they release tells you two things. It tells you what the natural disaster will be and how it will affect the main characters. It will probably be what they tackle the first couple of episodes. As I was looking at it I got another idea. Now with the poster out I want to elaborate.

I knew animals breaking loose from the zoo was happening from bts pics. For some reason I didn’t know how big it was going to be. Which I now think will be one of if not the main problem they face. This is what kicks off the season. Very much shapes the characters in a way. When I was looking at the posters again I noticed something else. Each season poster high lights the main event of the episodes but it does something else too. Each poster in a way coordinates with Buck and Eddies story. With their relationship as a whole. So I don’t want to say this will happen. Or say these posters are about Buddie. In a way I also will so ready to put my clown shoes on.

In season two it’s the earth quake. The poster is of the building toppling over. Which is the call Eddie and Buck go on. This is the first call they start to get close on. Then Buck asks Eddie who he’s trying to reach in the truck “my son Christopher”. Then later in the episode he drives Eddie to Chris’s school. He watches them from afar. He then drives them home (off screen). The earth quake is the thing to not only start off Buck and Eddies relationship/ partnership. “You can have my back any day.” It also starts off the Buckley Diaz family relationship. Then in season three it’s the tsunami and we all know how that went down. Buck is on a leave of absence. Buck watches Chris the two go to the pier and get stuck in the tsunami. Buck fights for Chris the first three episode. While Eddie is working unaware. They finally cross paths. Buck simultaneously reunites with them moments apart. Episode three ends with them coming over. “Buck there is no one in the world I trust with my son more than you.” Both these natural disasters affect them personally. In s2 it helps the development of their relationship. In season three Buck is off and looses Chris and Eddie almost looses his son. It only makes their relationship stronger. Him being off duty and in civil clothes further proves this. In affects everyone but we see how it personally affects them. Not just separately but together. In no other way we see this for the other team members. I made a previous post but in the s3 poster you see a little boy with a parental figure (possibly his mom) get stuck in the tsunami while on the pier. A little boy with brown hair and glasses. If that doesn’t represent Buck and Chris I don’t know what will. I also didn’t ignore the significance of the season 2 poster. Which is of a man and a woman ( a possible couple.) Reaching out and holding onto her hand for support. To when Eddie reached for Bucks hand when he almost fell in the building.

Out of all them season 4 is the most different. Which makes sense considering how this season started. This season in a lot of ways was different. We still had a natural disaster. At first I thought maybe this poster didn’t have anything related to them as directly. The only major call they had together was the bus in the side of the building. Where Buck scales the side of the building. Which even though the bus scene was in the promos it isn’t on the poster. The three prominent things are the helicopter ride, the houses collapsing and the mother and son on the balcony (also the Hollywood sign.) I could make a stretch with the bus rescue but I won’t. I’m going to go over two separate calls. The first being the houses. The call Buck was on with Chim. Eddie and Buck were separated most of them time. Besides s2 its actually reoccurring for them. The call with Buck mainly focuses on Chim. It also focuses on children and parenthood. The call with Eddie at the Hollywood sign is more about the people there helping. One of the calls is a guy falling in love with his roommate over quarantine. (While living with someone else in the process.) The second thing is the kids. In the posters from 3-5 you can see at the forefront a child with a parent. S3: a mother and son. S4: a mother and daughter (I think.) s5: a father and daughter. Which I find interesting. Especially how they are in the center for 3&5. Facing the disaster head on. Now I don’t want to assume s5 will indicate anything for Buddie. From the few things we know I have a few ideas.

From the bts pics we know Buck and Eddie will be dealing with a camel at some point. Probably tying to contain in from roaming any further. (Unless that was just the cast but I doubt it.) Its definitely possible Buck and Eddie will be dealing with more animals. Especially if that directors board going around a few weeks ago implies anything for them specifically. (I remember seeing Hen and Bobby on it.) Since the zoo aspect is larger they must be. I can’t see a whole episode but I can be wrong. Maybe 5x01 ends with them arriving/ a cliffhanger and 5x02 picking up where they left off. I am mainly just curious to see how this will affect Buck and Eddie separately and together. Plus their little family with Chris Especially after 4x14. These natural disasters usually affect them in some way. Other than s4 for the main part. I’m hoping season five will have the same pattern. Especially with Brenna Malloy directing.

Also let the Buckley-Diaz family go to the zoo.

#buddie #911 fox #poster analysis #idk what to tag this as #buckley diaz family #evan buckley #eddie diaz #christopher diaz #brenna malloy #9-1-1 fox #anyway something to think about #im on a one track mind set buddie and only buddie #sorry not sorry #the buddie show

43 notes · View notes

ships-bynoa · 3 years ago

Text

The Titans are almost back, bitches. aka 3x06

Guys, literally every time the titans are together-or even paired up-the episode gets ten times better, but in 6 episodes there is simply not enough Kory and Gar. I can easily forget that when I’m basking in the episode they are in, especially when they’re giving us family dynamics.

Kory:

“You’re not mad that I left. You’re mad I came back.” Kory’s face tells us Blackfire is right on the money, and who would know her better than her sister?

So, Kory, oh boy. Our girl is on edge. She is slowly unraveling and is super vulnerable and raw with Kom around and little sister is going to exploit it and her guilt, which I think she’s carrying a lot of. So far their dynamic has been fascinating because there’s so much to read between them and so many accusations being flung back and forth, from both. From Kory; you sense guilt and even contempt and from Kom there’s envy and resentment, but also there’s a sense of idealization for her older sister, too, which of course, with younger siblings, there always is an element of that. And as an older sibling, there is always an unspoken and sometimes spoken responsibility placed on them for their younger siblings. Parents often don’t realize it, but they can create a lot of tension within siblingships by assigning roles.

They remember home and family very differently, which is often the case, too. Kom was often thrown in the pit and to that, Kory attributes her sister’s constant rebellion as the reason, and yet, Kory herself was a bit of a rule breaker, sleeping with her guard, Fiddei.

Kory was being suffocated by the laws and customs of her home planet; one could say she rebelled by going on a mission, to escape her duties. Home did neither of them any favors because while one rebelled because she did not fit in, the one who did fit in was dying inside, surrounded by little robots and becoming one herself. Being told what to eat, wear and who to love or be friends with is yikes.

I was thinking Kom began her game of manipulation in the bunker, but she really started before that when she sent Fiddei to bring Kory home when she probably intended to kill him all along. After all she would’ve castrated him if she’d had the chance to for sleeping with Kory in the first place. Shortly after Fiddei’s death, Kory flamed out. No powers. Emotionally wrung out from the news her family was dead and now the culprit is here. These two know each other very well and know exactly how to get underneath each other’s skin. Right now Kom is getting underneath Kory’s and our girl is losing patience fast.

I’m wondering when exactly Dick will tune into Kory’s anxiety-ridden state and step in to support.

Ultimately, I just want to see what truly happened to the girls on their planet and how we have the versions we have now. Like, Kory said to Rachel, “No one is born good or bad, we are defined by our choices.” I get the feeling Kory has given Kom so many chances to make a different choice and has become disillusioned, meanwhile Kom believes nothing she does will give her the respect she feels she deserves anyway, so she may as well blow shit up, figuratively and literally. At least then she’ll have Kory’s attention.

Gar:

Gar losing it on Dick was so cathartic and yet he could’ve gone much further, considering Dick abandoned him last season to go jail and hallucinate Bruce. It ultimately led to Gar (and Conner) being kidnapped and experimented on by Mercy. It’s actually all the adults fault this happened, but as the leader promoting his family everywhere he goes, he needs to keep his eye on the ball. He would know if he spent five minutes at home with them that Gar is struggling. Last season Gar was #OperationSaveTitans and this season he’s #ThisFamilyIsDying. He’s doing what the adults should be doing, or at least leading the charge on it. He’s the glue, but who will hold him together?

He’s carrying too much emotional responsibility and Dick’s dismissal, because he is fully locked into Gotham and being Batman, makes me mad. Get your head in the game, Grayson. Gotham is going to eat your family while you retread the nostalgic steps of your past.

We all know Dick’s not good at expressing himself emotionally, though he’s usually forced to express something when talking to or being confronted by Kory, so I was proud of him for giving Gar the floor to speak. I just wish Gar spoke about himself, but then again, he needs more time and consistent offers to be heard. I’m happy Dick followed up the conversation up with a bonding/training session. There was definitely pride in Dick’s face because Gar really has come a long way in this group, but he needs MORE SCREEN TIME. I’d like to see the two of them out in the field together the way we’ve seen Kory this season with Gar and Conner.

I wonder if Gar losing control is the start of all his trauma bubbling up to the surface, will being in Gotham, hunting down a friend be too much?

As a side, has the CGI tiger face gotten worse?

Kom (and Conner):

First thing’s first, what music are we thinking Kom listens to? Probably the kind of music she can break your tailbone to, like, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Jay Z, or Prince, Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Nicks and Led Zeppelin? Rihanna?

Kom is absolutely a villain this season and if she isn’t, what a waste that’ll be. A mastermind at mind games (see, her picking up the chess piece), who is going to drum up Kory’s paranoia and anxiety around her being there. Trying to kill her suspicion by guilt tripping her while simultaneously being a do good-er to the group, feigning interest in helping the Titans to earn her way in, a tip from our boy, Conner.

She says she wants acceptance and I believe that’s absolutely true, but she doesn’t know how to get that without using power, so she’ll continue to covet acceptance through and with power because according to Kory, she’s always been a climber. Add to that, being born the cursed child and the only royal member born without the gift of fire, something that differentiates them from the common folk, being too frail to participate in the same games as Kory, having a speech therapist be her only friend while being the object of ridicule and you have a villain origin story nicely set up.

I really enjoyed Conner and Kom’s exchange. The boy lit up when he spoke about seeing his family happy and it made me light up. He’s so genuine and has a big heart and Kom is going to take advantage of it, that’s not to say she won’t develop real feelings for him, but she can like him and still use him.

Conner’s “you have to earn your way into the family,” is perhaps an internal and personal struggle he has from sharing blood with Luthor. I think it may come from an insecure place because he was made a titan as soon as he woke up and no one questioned it, but as he’s only half of superman, he’s constantly trying to prove his usefulness for good, which losing Hank has rocked, leaving him vulnerable to Kom’s recognition for his otherness. Their otherness.

She gave us insight into her mind, but also she has likely seized an opportunity to use the vulnerability against Conner and to her favor by making him her kindred. Outcasts. Will she gain influence over him? He’s still young and learning, and trusting, too.

Her interest in him felt layered, ignoring the ugly customs of sex servants, she was also observing Kory’s relationships and ranking them in her sister’s life. Her being able to determine who may have Kory’s interest (which Kory gave away with her vulnerable display of worry over Dick’s welfare in front of Kom) will surely come into play at some point, right? After all, Kom did kill Kory’s last lover/royal guard. This may be me projecting. LOL.

Romantically, I’m waiting to see how they play it before I decide if I like it or not, but so far, they have a nice chemistry. Friendly.

Dick (and Barbara) :

What a lovable dumb ass.

I was so happy Kory lost it on him and called him on his lone ranger shit, at least when it’s her, even when he’s being an idiot, he’s still listening. “Let’s go.” and I thought it was hilarious that he tried explaining himself, but when Gar called him out, he got all huffy with, “Excuse me, young man.”

Gar asking Kory not to have words with Barbara over Dick getting shot was so funny because Dick’s face seemed to ask the same when she asked how it happened. We love a protective Kory. I’ll be looking at him when it’s his turn to reciprocate.

I don’t like him dismissing their concerns about his personal safety and how it affects them, it’s like he’s learned nothing after running off alone to battle Trigon, or rather has unlearned his lessons of S2. I’d like to see some more permanent emotional growth from him by this season’s end. In his current state, he’s not an exuding leader. He can’t be when he’s still wrapped up in Bruce and all things Gotham. He’s not tuned into Kory’s anxiety, or Conner’s grief and insecurity, or Gar’s emotional burden.

He’s started making it up to him, but he has much to do in taking Gar’s concerns and emotional needs seriously.

I’m not even going to try and work out the timeline between Barbara and Dick and Dick and old Titans in San Fran and S1. But it doesn’t bode well that Dick’s dream with Barbara ended in a nightmare.

I wish they’d never did the whole Dick and Dawn relationship in S2 because they’re basically repeating some of the beats in showing us how they don’t work as a couple, only his relationship with Babs makes a lot more sense even though I don't care. Dick has unfinished business with that relationship, Bruce and Gotham and I can only hope he’s wrapped it up for good by this season’s end. I want to see relaxed, smiling and happy Dick in THE PRESENT. I still Babs will be the one to notice and point out Dick's feelings for Kory.

Barbara (outside of Dick) is being downplayed a little, no? Dismissing Dick’s suspicions about Jason when he arrived, showing no knowledge of Jason’s visits to Crane and then taking the bait and moving Crane after he got a light beat down. A commissioner who was also a very capable vigilante is tricked by a recording and goes to meet “Bruce” on her own. I really enjoyed that she could hold her own and the fight scene was really good, but it was a bit baffling that she fell for that ruse. So far, she’s not entirely good at her job.

Dick’s a distraction in his own right and her feelings clearly get in the way, which is why she keeps asking him to leave the precinct and Gotham; because she’s pining a fantasy and he’s ruining it. Lastly, I really like the way Savannah plays Barbara.

Why’d they do that to Tim?? :(

Overall, it was a better episode and I enjoyed it more than latter episodes, but they’re not quite there yet for me. I’m still waiting for Team Titans.

#dc titans #kory anders #koriand'r #stafire #gar logan #beast boy #dick grayson #nightwing #conner kent #superboy #noa posts

31 notes · View notes

parvuls · 3 years ago

Text

so many thoughts about the ted lasso finale but they're all a mess

SPOILERS BITCHES

many people said they found the finale anticlimactic and while i don't necessarily agree, i do see their point. i think the reason is that the s1 finale truly felt like a wrap up episode where all the arcs got an ending (even if the ending had an obvious afterthought that would come in s2, like jamie, like getting relegated, etc.), while the s2 finale was just one huge semicolon where all the arcs got to their peak and we'll only get to see their fallout in the concluding s3.

it's a logical way to format a three seasoned show - s1 serving as an exposition, s2 building up tensions, s3 tying everything with a nice bow - but i guess it is a bit of a frustrating watching experience. literally the only two arcs having a clear ending is the soccer (in the first they get relegated, in the second they get promoted, in the third they win the whole fucking thing - ted promised us that), and nate's arc.

ted spent the whole season struggling to face his mental health issues - which came to a head when he finally confronted his dad's suicide, but then the arc peaked when he decided to turn his circumstances for the better and talk about mental health in sports. the conclusion to ted's personal journey will only come next season, so in fact, after admitting to his problems we haven't seen much progress.

keeley spent the whole season working on her career and slowly allowing herself to express her goal of being the one in charge in the business sense. it came to a head when she got a dream offer, but it all happened in the last possible second so we don't know anything about how she feels, what it's gonna be like, how it's going to affect her life. that would comd in the next season.

roy and keeley spent the first half of the season establishing a serious adult relationship and then the second half tugging on several plot threads of Relationship Issues. this is perhaps the arc I'm least happy with - unlike the others, it didn't even peak. i assumed they'll have a big fight this finale, but instead we got a six week separation keeley claimed is good, while metaphorical ominous music sounded in the air thanks to roy's diamond dogs moment. obviously there's some commitment issues and lack of communication lingering there, but it's just a weird place to leave them off. s3 will simultaneously deal with having that fallout, fixing them and with getting their happy ever after? can't imagine the flow, tbh. sounds too heavy for a season that has so much to accomplish already.

nate's arc, while unbelievably complicated, is the only thing other than soccer that's very very clearly divided into three neat sections. season 1 dealt with him cementing a place within the team, season 2 dealt with his gradual downfall and had an obvious ending when he betrayed them and went to work for rupert (as we predicted), and season 3 will deal with his redemption. i hated nate for a lot of the season, but you have to admire how round his character is, how well he's written and acted. we'll see how they sell him back into our graces, but i've got hopes.

then there are all the things that are kinda floating around and i'm ??? about them, because when your main arcs get left off at their peak on purpose, it's hard to know what else is unresolved on purpose and what's just been neglected. what was the point of sambecca? unless s3 features endgame tedbecca and sam will somehow serve as a plot device for that, i don't understand why it happened, why it was left off like it was, and why no one has voiced concerns yet. what even was jamie's arc in the second half of s2? becoming a team player already started last season and his dad didn't get a resolution. when is the fallout from beard and jane supposed to happen? what was the point of the ted/flo build-up? were they going somewhere with pheobe's school struggles (and the breast drawings)?

i enjoyed this episode more than i expected but i still have more questions than answers for s3, and i'm not sure how i feel. mostly i'm confused and concerned, even though my babies got promoted, which really says a lot.

#ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso #text #the last 5 episodes of this season have been... an experience #not as bad an experience as i feared #but still very confusing

17 notes · View notes

dramaticviolincrescendo · 4 years ago

Note

Okay, what are your thoughts on Ian's relationships? With his family, his boyfriends, and Mandy (since I think that's the only friend he's had)

Oh, no. Ohhhhhhhh, no. Now you’ve done it. You’ve asked about my dear, darling favorite character on the show. My love for one Ian Gallagher runs deep, which means this answer is going to run super long. The good, the bad, and everything in between—Ian Gallagher lives rent free in my brain and always will. I derive so much satisfaction from seeing Ian interact with other people, in whatever capacity that might be. I admire and aspire to the compassion he has shown for others over the years, even and perhaps most especially those who arguably haven’t earned it. He tries so hard to be good to people, and seeing their love for him manifest when he’s reached such lows where he can’t even fathom why the love of his life would want to be with him forever? That’s powerful.

So, yeah. I said I could write essays on these characters, and that’s exactly what you’re about to get: five hours and 6k words’ worth of my thoughts. (I am so sorry. There will be text walls.)

Let’s dive into Ian’s many and multifaceted relationships—his family, his friends, and his romantic pursuits.

Ian and Family

Ian told us where he stood on this in the very first season, and it set the standard for his character for eleven years to come. Faced with a prospect that others in his position could only dream of—not being Frank’s son and having a wealthy father with a functional, prosperous lifestyle mere miles away—Ian refused to buy into it. He refused to do what might have been objectively better for his future by seeking a relationship with Clayton. In that household, he would have had access to a better public school, more financial resources, a tutor to help him where he was struggling, and less urgency for him to work so that he could enjoy being a kid. When he got sick, he would have had access to better healthcare, too. Perhaps he would have had a better shot at West Point from that background than he did at home. But that’s just it: home was with his family, and he was very clear that they didn’t live in that nice house. All he wanted—all he wanted—was to be with his brothers and sisters. He has never referred to them as only half-siblings or half-cousins; he has never even used the words, “you’re not my dad,” on Frank. That’s his family, the people he loves most in the world, and he’s always been at his best when he’s with them and at his worst when he’s not. Let’s look at each of them:

1. Frank: It is so striking to me that Ian doesn’t appear to hold the outright contempt for Frank that Fiona, Lip, and Debbie have exhibited at different points over the years. Aside from the handful of instances where they’ve gotten into physical altercations (which Frank always initiated) and kicking him out of the house on occasion, Ian is simply indifferent to him. But there are these moments, these brief glimmers of mutual attachment and loyalty, if those are the right words. In the scene where Ian famously doesn’t count to three before using the pepper spray on him, Frank starts saying how his New Gallaghers weren’t his real kids—that Ian is his real son, and Frank is his real father. It’s a passing thought uttered while trying to manipulate his way into the house that neither of them think much of, nor does the audience…until you remember that biologically, Frank isn’t his father, and he certainly hasn’t behaved like one either. Ian has more right than anyone to comment on that, but he doesn’t because Frank is his father. He’s the father that Ian idly hoped wouldn’t come to his wedding yet sat joking about with Debbie rather than getting pissed off that he was making out with some lady in front of everyone. He’s the father who sat at the table with them eating breakfast in 11x03 and claimed Mickey was the man in their relationship without Ian saying a word to him about it, and who Ian saw no issue with taking Franny to school when no one else could. In s4, as far removed from his family as he’d been for a while, Ian still went straight to the hospital when he heard that Frank was at death’s door. We focus so much on his attitude towards Monica because of how obvious it was that we frequently miss these tiny moments and their implications. It would take an awful lot of patience, compassion, and love not to write Frank off completely after all he’s done. Not necessarily our standard definition of love between a son and his father, perhaps, but a loving soul.

2. Monica: I have actually written a pretty lengthy post about his relationship with her because while their shared mental illness definitely plays a role in his feelings toward her, that grew complicated far earlier than his diagnosis. The first time we meet her, we see that he has a visceral reaction to news of her presence. He runs. When Ian can’t process strong emotions, that’s what he’s done in the past. I happened upon an interview Cameron did just after the end of s1 where he mentioned something I had already been thinking: Ian’s age when Monica left is extremely important. He was a kid in s1, but one who could roll with the punches, sometimes literally. She left them two years before that. Ian would have been in middle school, roughly as old as Debbie was when she still called Frank “daddy” and forgave him for everything he did. It’s an awkward age that once again set Ian in something of a danger zone—too old to accept an excuse or no explanation at all, but not old enough to process the situation in a healthy way. And then she’s back all of a sudden with no warning. Ian doesn’t cry like Debbie, and he doesn’t typically get explosively angry like Fiona. He can’t deal, so he runs. He hangs back. He only speaks when he has to and compartmentalizes: Monica wants to take Liam, and they need to stop her. It doesn’t have to be about her leaving. They have a goal—he can focus on that. And then she’s back a year later, saying she’s here to stay while Fiona seems to take her at her word and Lip isn’t there to ground everyone. Ian tries so hard to behave like Lip would with his biting sarcasm and attempts to stay emotionally distant in a way that seemed pretty exaggerated for Ian, but he’s also dealing with a fresh wave of guilt over Mickey going to juvie—and Monica gets it. She’s the only person to acknowledge that he’s in pain and actively try to make it better. She’s the only one who really knows at the time, but that hardly matters. This poor kid, whose mother left him when he still needed her, has her standing in front of him and saying she’s sorry and listening when he speaks and taking him dancing—just the two of them. Embarrassing as it was and harmful as it could have been, she tried to facilitate his dreams when no one else wanted him to go into the military. She was there for him when he went AWOL. She came for him when he was arrested and even wanted to make a place for him in her new life, unrealistic as it was. This goes so much deeper than them both being bipolar. Ian’s comment about her parachuting into their lives in s7 wasn’t about Mickey or her role in them breaking up. He trusted her. He wanted her. He needed her. And she’d convinced him that she would be there—until she left. Over and over again. She was there for him and unintentionally took advantage of how desperately he still needed his mother. She made him keep loving her, and that’s both a blessing that has him crying into a voluminous man’s arms when she passes and a curse that wrecked him more than once.

3. Fiona: The trust these two have for each other cannot be understated. Fiona has discussed things with Ian that she never brought up around any of the other kids throughout the entire series. In the pilot episode, she tells him about feeling needed and takes his opinion on the matter to heart. At the end of the season, he’s the one she talks to about the car because she can trust him to give her an answer even without speaking. In s2, she tells Lip that the two of them are her rocks, and we see that time and time again. That’s part of what makes their falling out over the church hit that much harder: it’s Ian and Fiona. The only time they’d been on the outs in any serious manner up to that point was when Ian was adjusting to his new reality and they were trying to find a balance between sister and caretaker. Otherwise, that bond of trust had never been severed—not until Ian literally sold himself only for it to amount to nothing in the end because she had no idea the lengths to which he’d gone to get that building. That damage gets mended, thankfully, but what a powerful period of time when those two were the only ones who’d never really been at each other’s throats. There is a downside to that trust, though. As I mentioned before, Ian was so responsible and put together when he was younger that Fiona didn’t think twice about his situation with Ned or that he ran away. Not even seventeen yet, and she was telling Debbie that she didn’t like his decision to leave but trusted him. That is one of the things I love about this show—even something like trust that we always prop up as an important factor in our relationships can betray us in the most unexpected ways.

4. Lip: I won’t go into it here, but the relationship they share is something that means a lot to me on a personal level. It’s part of how I knew that Ian would become my favorite character pretty early on. The way he simultaneously admires and envies Lip, loves and is annoyed by him, relies on him and is desperate to pave his own path in the world—what a beautiful and accurate depiction of what it means to be a younger sibling. Lip is the first person to discover that he’s gay and openly accept him for it. (I think what he tried with Karen came from a well-meaning place even if it was horribly, horribly misguided.) Lip is the one who tries to get him into West Point, hate it as he does. He helps Ian when Terry is after him, takes care of him in the aftermath of the wedding when he realizes just how deeply Ian feels for Mickey, searches the whole damn city for him when he finds out that Ian is in trouble, gets him a job, leans on him in his own time of need… He’s not perfect. He slips up, just like Ian does. Some things break my heart, like Lip insisting that he’s earned his own space when his little brother is asking him for safe harbor or Ian thanking him for being his brother outside the prison. But they love each other so much, and I just… I can’t possibly put into words how much I love their dynamic.

5. Debbie, Carl, and Liam: I’m grouping these three together because they’re further separated from Ian in age, so we see a lot of the same trends with them as a whole. Ian loves taking care of people. We know this. We also know that Fiona and Lip don’t typically want him taking care of them—they’re the ones who take care of him when he needs it, specifically Lip. With the younger three, however, Ian can be the Big Brother. He can shake his head in utter bafflement at Debbie’s obsession with holding her breath for two minutes, walk Carl through what he needs to go camping, and promise his baby brother postcards when he leaves. The difference here is that his relationship with them is so much less fraught with conflict. We don’t see him fight with Debbie, Carl, or Liam the way he has with Fiona or Lip. While Ian tends to be the voice of reason during conflicts overall, I think it’s also because he relies on his older siblings in a way that he doesn’t with his younger siblings, and the latter don’t tend to rely on him as much as Fiona or Lip as well. There’s a lack of tension in most of their interactions growing up because that pressure isn’t there. Perhaps this is where Ian’s age and standing in the family is a bit more beneficial: young enough to have people he can rely on while too young for anyone to really rely on him for more than his share of the squirrel fund.

Ian and Friends

I’ve seen it mentioned that Ian (and Mickey) not having more friends is bad or lazy writing. I tend to believe that that fails to take something into account that, admittedly, most of us don’t really have to think about: having friends is a luxury. It requires time and effort to cultivate friendships, especially lasting ones. As a kid, Ian spent a lot of his free time working or helping to manage one family crisis after another. Going AWOL, losing his health, struggling to acclimate to his illness, trying to find a new career path, spiraling into the Gay Jesus movement, going to prison, adjusting once again to normal life, getting married, a pandemic… I’m sure he’s had plenty of acquaintances over the years, but having a family to support and constant upheavals would have made it extremely difficult to really forge strong relationships with them. I think that’s part of what makes his relationship with Mandy so special and valuable to him: she’s sort of the same way.

When we met Mandy in s1, she had other friends. We saw her meet up with them and go shopping; she told Ian a story about how one was mad at her for not sharing her make-up. As the trauma in the Milkovich household reached its zenith for her in s2 and she started thinking seriously about getting out of there, we saw those friends fall by the wayside—all except Ian. He saw her and let her see him early on. That’s a level of trust and respect that nobody else in their neighborhood would have displayed, certainly not to her. But then there’s this guy who defended her against their creepy, perverted teacher and treated her like a human being, not an object. It’s no wonder she developed an obvious, unrequited crush and sought physical comfort from him occasionally. It’s no wonder she tried to repay the favor by giving Mickey a hard time in s3 and s4, misguided and rather uninformed as we know it was at the time. (It’s also no wonder that she went for the closest Gallagher to Ian, either, but that’s for another meta.)

And Ian… Ian is loyal to a fault. We have watched Ian cut out his own heart and let the blood drip down his arm to pool on the floor at his feet if it would make a damn bit of difference for the people he loves. Like Fiona and Lip, Mandy immediately accepted him for who he is and suggested an arrangement that would protect him as well as benefit her. That is enormous where they came from. To him, that had to feel like the ultimate sign of friendship: he could trust her with a part of him that he hadn’t even entrusted to most of his family yet. From that point on, she was on the List of People Ian Gallagher Would Do Anything For. Finding out about Terry and what had happened? He held a bake sale, of all things, to fundraise for her. Seeing that his brother—his best friend—was treating her like garbage? He put him in his place. Her boyfriend was beating her? He brought her home and made it his goal to find a safe place for her to stay, even if it ultimately didn’t work. She was going to move away from all of her meager support with that boyfriend? He didn’t just rally his own arguments—he brought in outside help with Lip, who he thought might tip the scales. It’s usually just a saying that true friends will help each other hide a body, but Ian literally tried to do that. Lucky for him, he has a good head on his shoulders and used it.

No, Ian doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. We’ve seen that he has spheres of influence, if you will, and acquaintances that he can call upon when he needs them. (For example, the guys that helped with the preacher.) However, Ian has always struck me as a “quality over quantity” type of person. Being a soldier or an EMT isn’t lucrative, but they’re meaningful for someone who sees them as vehicles for helping people. Seeing more parts of the world than just Chicago has appealed to him in the past, but he seems perfectly content to carve out a spot for himself right here at home. Having only three best friends—Lip, Mandy, and Mickey—doesn’t seem like much of a hardship for him.

Ian and Romantic Pursuits

I hate to say that there were five, but from Ian’s perspective, there were. So, let’s talk about all five. Even though…there weren’t five. There was only one. We’ll save the best for last.

1. Kash: The first of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. I hope it goes without saying that I hate this man with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I hate him so much. However, their interactions taught me a whole lot about how kind and compassionate Ian really is—and how naïve. Of course, he would believe that Kash loved him. The man was buying him all sorts of expensive gifts, and that’s what we see on all the commercials and in so many movies, isn’t it? Grand gestures of affection through expensive gifts. Poor as they were, Ian still scraped together the money to buy him baseball tickets and CDs, convinced as he was that that was all part of what you did in a relationship. That desire to do things like a “normal” married couple in s11? Yeah, that starts here. Ian has always been a planner, and he’s always bought into certain stereotypes. We can see that here. What we can also see is Ian’s compassionate, kind, loving soul. He cares so deeply for other people, even ones that he doesn’t know very well, especially if they are living in circumstances that mean something to him. (For example, the mentally ill woman they tried to help at work and the shelter kids whose situations were so similar to Mickey’s.) Kash being a closeted gay man living in misery with a wife he didn’t love and two children he never meant to have clearly tugged at Ian’s heartstrings. Even after everything that happens, even though Ian behaves as though they’re awkward exes who just happen to work together, he still covers for Kash. He gives him that head start and takes it upon himself to break the news to Linda that he’s gone. He defends Kash to Lip when the latter finally says exactly what we all know: he was a pedophile who deserved to rot in prison for what he did. As with Fiona’s trust, Ian’s loving soul, compassionate heart, and desire for love outside his siblings are virtues that have done him harm in the past. This is one such instance.

2. Ned: The second of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. To be honest, I don’t believe that Ian would even characterize it that way. He seemed very aware that Ned was a distraction from his problems—from Mickey being in juvie, Monica falling into a depressive episode, the money in the squirrel fund being gone, Lip moving out, losing his shot at West Point, and getting denied for service due to his age. Again, though, Ian has always wanted to feel valued, and this rich dude was letting him stay in a fancy hotel room with anything he wanted readily available. This (disgusting predator) guy was giving him attention and a distraction with no strings attached. Then the complications roll in, and he’s once again faced with being the mistress to a closeted, married man. The difference here is that he’s not comfortable with it. He tries to tell Fiona twice, which is enormous for Ian when he has never been very good at communicating if it means burdening others with or even merely facing his own problems. But he tries to tell her. He rejects the GPS unit and tells Ned that he has a boyfriend, boxing him into a strictly sexual arrangement. (This, unfortunately, makes sense. It aligns with how Fiona viewed things: where Jimmy was concerned about it, she told him that it was “just sex.”) He is also visibly embarrassed to admit to Lip and Fiona what has been going on with Ned. By that point, Ian is a year and a half older and, while still scarred and warped in his views because of Kash, perhaps a bit wiser. Emotionally, he kept Ned at arm’s length most of the time. He used Ned not just as a distraction, but as a way to galvanize Mickey into taking their relationship a step forward. But Ian is still Ian, and Ian is compassionate to a fault. Ned played that card by asking if he could have a little understanding for a man whose life was falling apart. Sure, he can. He’s Ian, the Gallagher too empathetic for his own good at times. We know how that spirals out of control. It just goes to show that even when Ian was trying to maintain some emotional distance, his heart is simply too big and his perceptions too heavily impacted by the grooming he’d experienced with two different people by then, and so he [SPOILER ALERT] still feels enough of a connection to Ned after all these years to be mildly bothered that he passed away.

3. Caleb: The third of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Ian’s relationship with Caleb strikes me as being similar to what he had with Ned. While more age-appropriate, Ian was very much using Caleb, just as Caleb was using him. That’s why it was so easy for both of them to walk away. Ian was in a difficult spot when they met. He was grateful to the firefighters who saved his life, but he had also just saved someone else at a moment when he was perhaps at his absolute lowest. That’s what he’s always wanted, isn’t it—to be a bit of a hero and help people? So, he’s understandably drawn there, first out of gratitude and then to be surrounded by very attractive gay firemen who helped people, saved his life, and invited him to be part of a function they were holding. But he made himself pretty clear from the start: he was interested in sex with Caleb. That was the draw. He still hasn’t come to terms with being bipolar and losing Mickey, but Ian has never not been with anyone for any extended length of time. That’s just who he is: he’s always sought some level of outward validation—from the army, Kash, Monica, Mickey, and so many others. We’re seeing him struggle with that now as he deals with the opportunities available to him as a mentally ill ex-con felon. So, he pursues Caleb as a distraction just like he did with Ned, only Caleb is a predator in his own right and can smell that his interest is coming from a place of weakness. He immediately (and initially unintentionally) preys on Ian’s desperate need for structure and order by insisting on a traditional date where Ian is very much out of his element and even goes so far as to instruct Ian on how to be intimate. It’s no wonder he mentions Mickey in these moments, as Mickey never wanted him to change, and Ian leans heavily (even slightly hyperbolically) into the fact that Mickey wasn’t a paragon of order and stability like Caleb outwardly appears.

And I think why Ian puts up with it so long—being taught like a child, being used to upset Caleb’s parents, being paraded in front of his friends to make them jealous—is because he was getting something out of it too, just like with Ned. A stable place to live when their home ownership was in flux, a place away from his family when they weren’t providing the support he needed as he adjusted to his disorder, someone who validated his desires to help people regardless of their ulterior motives, and a physical distraction from his own problems. All of these parallel his relationship with Ned very closely. It was never going to last, of course. Ian is a strong person who temporarily forgot how strong he was because he forgot who he was, and Caleb didn’t want to be cared for—he wanted a project, like all of his sculptures. Being a project, being something that others see as needing to be fixed? That’s a hard no for Ian. It always has been. There’s a moment I love later in their relationship where Caleb tells him to turn off the lights when he goes out and lightly reprimands him for leaving one on the day prior. Ian is in a better place at that point, having regained a lot of his sense of self, and stares after him with indignation at being treated like a kid. He’s then lied to and cheated on, but I think that to mention those things to Caleb when they break up is to admit weakness on his own part—that he stuck with Caleb knowing that he was being mistreated, and Ian is not one to be called a victim. So, while we know from his discussions with Lip and Sue that the cheating and distrust bothered him most, he merely focused on Caleb lying about his sexuality, which removed a lot of the emotion from the situation—just like he did with Ned. It ultimately turned out to be a bad move since Caleb, being a skilled predator, made him question even his own sexuality in return, but we’re starting to see that Ian isn’t here to be someone’s toy anymore. Not an older, married man like Ned, but definitely not anyone his age either. I’m glad this pseudo-relationship happened because it showed Ian how strong he really was and that he could be in control of his own life. Sure, it destabilized him a little in the aftermath, but he worked through it. He leaned on his family, specifically Lip, who has always been his rock without the blurred lines that Fiona represented between sister/mother-figure/caretaker. Caleb is a garbage person, but Ian was the one who pulled the treasure from the trash, not him.

4. Trevor: The fourth of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Trevor is perhaps the first relationship where we don’t see Ian dive in. Whether that’s because of his confusion over Trevor’s gender identity or the fact that he was really beginning to fully mature as an adult by that point (ostensibly finishing his education, getting a career, being fully self-sufficient, etc.), he tried to take his time and not jump right in. They hung out, talked around the neighborhood, and yes, engaged in some casual intimacy at the club. Again, Ian might not be in a full relationship, but he’s never without someone for long. At that point in the series, all he was missing was a relationship when it comes to traditional, “normal” goals for people to have. But Trevor posed a situation he’s never been in before since, while gay himself, Ian has never been very interested in activism or engaging in the LGBT community. It’s just not in his culture or environment, so to be faced with someone he’s interested in that challenges a lot of his views of gender and sexuality is something he takes his time with. Unfortunately, Trevor is younger than him and not quite as mature, not quite as experienced. He tells Ian he has plenty of friends and doesn’t need another, which is an ultimatum that has never really sat very well with me personally because I’m generally of the mind that if a person needs time and you really care for them, you’ll let them have that time. I’m not unsympathetic to Trevor: he’s been burned before and has his own trauma stemming from responses to his identity, so it makes complete sense for him not to be patient in this regard. He shouldn’t have to be—but then, Ian shouldn’t have to rush into anything he’s not 100% certain he wants either. That’s exactly what he does, though, because Ian does for others without thinking of the implications for himself a lot of the time. They make great friends, but they don’t make great partners. Trevor treats Ian similarly to Caleb in that he’s a bit of a project. Trevor educates him on the LGBT community and incorporates him into his ventures for the shelter without ever really showing much interest in Ian’s life or family, which suits Ian just fine because for as interested as he is in helping with the shelter and as attracted to Trevor as he is, he seems to know they’re not compatible. Ian, who has been having sex since he was far too young, takes a step back from it when they run into compatibility issues. (And pushes back on the pressure to bottom with some of his own—neither of them were in the right on that.) He doesn’t ask much about Trevor’s family or try to be part of his personal life. They sort of embody the “friends with benefits” stereotype: they hang out, they have sex, and that’s really all there is to their relationship.

The reason Ian doubles down on trying to make it work isn’t because there was a future for them before Mickey broke out. It’s because he thinks he’s lost Mickey forever, he knows he’s lost Monica forever, and he’s not going to get the support he needs from his family when they couldn’t stand Monica and Fiona told him what he already knew to be true, namely that Mickey being an escaped convict would destroy everything Ian worked so hard for if he got involved. So, he does what Ian does. He needs that distraction—he needs to run from these strong emotions he can’t process, so he bottles them up and unfairly hopes that Trevor will provide some of that comfort after cheating on him with Mickey. (Had Mickey been released, I think they would have broken up. Instead, that was the first match Ian lit, but certainly not the last.) Now, the thing is, Trevor said at the start that he didn’t want to be Ian’s friend. He’s also younger and less mature in a relationship, which means he threw the concept of love out there prematurely, just like Ian thought what he had with Kash was love. The death throes of their relationship were a back and forth where Ian was spiraling and seeking comfort, and Trevor was providing some while keeping their relationship pretty amorphous. (Were they exes? Were they friends? Were they people who shared interests and danced around each other? Were they going to get back together? They never officially broke up—it fizzled and resurged, then fizzled for good.) Ultimately, whatever it was that they had couldn’t survive Mickey, Monica, or Gay Jesus. Trevor wasn’t prepared to deal with a full-blown manic episode, and based on his hands-off approach with involving himself in Ian’s life even before the Mickey-shaped bomb got dropped on them, it doesn’t seem like he really wanted to anyway. He did what he’s always done: prioritized his shelter, which I’m not deriding in the slightest. By that point, Ian was too far gone to care that he disappeared anyway. Had the situation been different and he was getting the support from his family that he needed, it doesn’t seem like he would have cared much there either.

5. Mickey: Finally. Only took over five thousand words to get here. I’ll preface this with something that anyone who knows me from other fandoms is already well aware of, namely that I don’t do romance. Ever. Never been interested. The relationships I’ve always been most passionately interested in are platonic ones, especially “found families” and siblings, which is probably obvious from the other five thousand words here. Ian and Mickey are the first relationship I’ve actively shipped or written for in a fandom. They’re the first I’ve been invested in to this extent. As such, one of the biggest pet peeves I had when I first joined this fandom was the saying, “Ian fell first, Mickey fell harder.” These two wonderful dumbasses face planted on the concrete in front of the Kash and Grab in s1 and never recovered. I could go on forever about these two, but that particular wall of text would probably be too daunting for even the most avid Gallavich stan to traverse, so I’ll keep it fairly brief. As we can see above, Ian has a very strict sense of what he “should” want in a partner. Someone who is moderately successful in their chosen field, makes enough money to at least live comfortably, and typically does something that helps other people (a doctor, a fireman, a youth counselor). These aren’t passionate people. They’re not men who operate on instinct the way most of the people in his life have always had to by virtue of their social standing. They have life goals and opportunities that he envies, and Ian has a great deal of compassion for them when they hit a roadblock or things don’t work out. The amazing dichotomy of Ian Gallagher is that he straddles a line most people can’t between the rough neighborhood that has instilled in him all of his values/behaviors and the middle-class mentality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and aspiring to more. Ian has always aimed for what Lip said wasn’t possible for poor people: being successful without having to scam or steal. But as I said way back at the beginning of this manifesto, the South Side is his home. His family is his family. And none of the people he’s been with personify the South Side quite like Mickey—they don’t personify home like Mickey.

And I think that’s where the initial draw for Ian is. (I’m going to focus on Ian’s side since he’s who your question focused on.) The other guys look great on paper, and Ian’s brain says that that’s what he should aim for. We know better, though. We know that Ian has an enormous heart that belongs first and foremost to his family and their home. His heart says that this person—this dirty, rude, mean, violent person—is home. His heart says this person is everything about himself that he denies having, just like Ian was everything about Mickey that the latter declined to openly acknowledge for so long. I don’t like relationships built on “making each other better.” I really don’t. The wonderful thing about this is that it’s never been that way. Ian didn’t change Mickey. He’s exactly who he’s always been, but he’s grown past the fear of his own emotions and Terry’s response to them. He’s still a thief, a con artist, violent, and rude. Mickey didn’t change Ian either. He’s still rigidly conforming to certain stereotypes of what he thinks he should want, seeking structure (to his own detriment at times), and not a great communicator. The point for them is that they complement each other, not that they make the other a better person—not even that they bring something out of each other that wasn’t already there. That’s what Ian’s other relationships did. They made him shave off his edges so that he could fit a square peg into a round hole, and that’s not happiness. It’s simply what he thought he was supposed to do—what “normal” people did.

With Mickey, he doesn’t have to worry so much about what is normal or acceptable. He doesn’t have to worry about whether or not his life is objectively “on track,” not until fairly recently. Mickey is the only person he’s ever been with who has accepted him for who he is, faults and strengths alike, without the underlying insinuation that he should be aiming for something else or pretending to be whatever the other person needs him to be in order to care for them. Kash needed an escape—Ian provided it. Ned needed a very specific brand of toy—Ian played that role. Caleb needed a project to feel fulfilled—Ian went along with it for a bit. Trevor needed someone who accepted him as he was but did things his way—Ian did that. To care for Mickey has only ever meant being himself because all Mickey ever really needed was him. Mickey didn’t need an escape from his home—his relationship with his family is more complicated than that. Mickey didn’t need to be saved from his upbringing—it’s what made him the person Ian fell in love with and who he is happy to be. Mickey didn’t need someone to change who he is on a fundamental level because unless it is going to get him into trouble and separate them, Ian never wanted him to. (Even then, it’s about what he does, not who he is.) And yes, I’m sure that there’s a level of excitement that Ian finds exhilarating where Mickey is concerned, but I tend to believe it goes a lot deeper than that. What he finds exciting about Mickey is what Mickey embodies about the South Side—about home. About his own upbringing, but also Ian’s. About Frank and Monica, his siblings, school, work, ROTC—existing and surviving in an environment where it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have money to keep the heat on this winter or feed your family. They spent the early seasons living in a constant state of fight or flight. They couldn’t afford not to. And there’s excitement in that. Look at how many people say that the first seasons are their favorite! There hasn’t been a huge shift in the quality or direction of the writing, just the trajectory of the characters. They’ve gotten older, and their problems have been different. It’s not about survival so much of the time anymore, but those are the storylines that excite us. For Ian, that exhilaration in the constant battle of survival in their neighborhood is sewn into the fiber of his being just like it is Mickey’s. He saw his home in Mickey before they truly fell in love, and when that followed, Mickey became home.

In Conclusion

Ian has spent his entire life looking for the “right” path only to realize that it was laid before him: his family, his small circle of friends, and Mickey. I love that that is coming full circle this season, where [SPOILER ALERT] marriage has almost made him regress a bit to that place where there must be a right way of doing things going forward, and slowly but surely, we’re seeing him loosen up.

Good morning. It’s Ian Gallagher loving hours.

#shameless #ian gallagher #it's ian gallagher loving hours #shameless meta #well that took six hours #and I didn't get more writing done #but I feel accomplished

97 notes · View notes

thebigoblin · 3 years ago

Note

Ok, after looking at some notes I have a sentence. "You can be kind to yourself, you know that... Right?" Go with it however you want!

Lol, I wanted this on my writing blog (@whenwordsmakesense) but guess I'll have to make do with it here 😂😂

Thanks for the line, and once again, I have written more than 5 lines~ Hope you like it!!

The title is just something I thought of. It's not a song (as far as I know) or a lyric, but actually the perfect canon time to change things for the better imo. The summer between S2 and S3 had so much potential, honestly.

Summer (when I'll bury my dreams)

[Also on AO3]

"You can be kind to yourself, you know that... right?"

Stiles' voice is like a dream stolen from the brightest parts of his brain, and all Derek wants to do is chase it until he can wrap it in his arms, cling to it and never let it go.

Derek starts running faster, his muscles burning up to a terrifying degree even for a werewolf.

Stiles is still sitting on the porch steps of his burnt home when Derek comes around again, eyes wandering around the empty clearing until it comes to a stop at him. Derek watches as arousal flares in the teenager's scent, how his eyes lingers on Derek's chest where his clothes stick a little too much because of the sweat he's gathered up while running around, searching for his missing betas.

His ex-betas.

"Why are you here."

Stiles startles at that, and it internally amuses Derek. Humans; it's difficult to think how they can live their whole lives without senses that are in tune with everything around each other. They're so vulnerable.

And yet a human killed all of his family, because he was the one who was weak.

Stiles is saying something, Derek doesn't know; he heard Scott's name being mentioned as well as Isaac's, and he can smell the jealousy coming off of Stiles.

"—and then I heard my dad's radio, the police one that is, and guess what I heard? They are missing! Erica and Boyd are missing,"

Derek straightens at that. "Why are you here, Stiles." Police are involved. That means Derek needs to find them quickly, hopefully before the police does.

Stiles gives him a look that makes him feel like a kid who has been caught stealing cookies; it's a contradiction, how the human feels so much like an Alpha and not, and Derek's wolf is utterly unhelpful in the process of uncovering why he feels like this.

"Dude, running around like crazy will not help you find them,"

"And you're here to help me. You." He means it as, you, Scott's best friend, who didn't even know who Erica and Boyd were before, wants to help me find them? Why, because you suddenly care for them? But Stiles takes it as something else.

Stiles' jaw sets stubbornly, and it looks childish on his young face, but his words hold a weight that Derek is unable to not hold.

"I may be human unlike you, but I have resources. I can help you—you know what? I can find them on my own. You just keep running around like a useless fucking dog that has no clue what the hell to do when its owners are gone!"

"I don't understand you." The words leave his mouth of their own accord, but the sentiment is true. Only minutes before Stiles was asking him to slow down, to not punish himself, to slow down and take a breath, if not in the exact same words, but he was.

Stiles' smile is tight as he says, "Nobody does," but then his eyes soften, his mouth curls down into a frown. "Are you going to help me? I know your wolfy instincts must be going all bleh with your betas gone, and I know that's why you're grumpy—well, grumpier than usual, and punishing yourself by running around—"

"I am trying to find their scents, Stiles."

"Oh."

Derek thinks about the offer. About how there's a faint trace of his betas on the human, like they'd been together for a few hours in the past few days, and his eyes linger on the injuries visible on Stiles' body—there's a story there, one that might give him the answer about the almost-no-scent of Scott on Stiles, and the flicker of hurt and surprise he'd seen on Stiles' face on that night.

Derek doesn't so much as verbally tells Stiles to follow, but Stiles does anyways, and as they're walking in the forest, away from Derek's burned home, Stiles asks, "So? Am I helping you—?"

"Make sure that none of your dad's deputies don't come in the Preserve. And if they somehow find a lead, tell me."

Stiles nods vigorously, and he starts spewing ideas about how to find Erica and Boyd, and it's too fast and too well-prepared, and Derek simultaneously feels a headache coming on and a smile tugging on his lips, two things that should be impossible but Stiles is responsible for anyways.

It's a feeling he'll feel for the innumerable days to come, but right now he's got two betas to find.

(He finds them, alive and breathing and thankful, and he also finds a piece of his old life he didn't know he still had—that night, as Cora and Derek reacquaint themselves with each other, under the moon and with their Pack—Stiles, Erica, Boyd and Isaac—it feels like the new beginning Laura had wished for, the night she'd taken Derek to New York.

It's a night none of them forget).

#sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #sterek fic recs #my fics #whenwordsmakesense #answered ask

14 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

Note

Hello again! Im the tinfoil hat anon with the long ass asks and I finally had the time to read your response. Thank you, it makes my day reading your answers. I honestly just enjoyed them over a cup of coffee like a good book.

Now, the gun pointing scene I mentioned was in fact the one from the droid fight facility like the other anon suggested. But I really liked that you covered the boat scene too, I haven’t thought of it much myself and now I definitely have!

I also would like to mention I love your “candy bar” choice analogy and I 100% agree Hunter’s “invitation” to join back wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. It is very likely just an obligation as you said. Sort of “you gave us a chance, we owe you a chance too”.

And the problem with it is now I am struggling to figure out how the batch members might change their attitude toward Crosshair going forward, especially Hunter. As of right now Crosshair’s best relationship is not with his brothers but with Omega(as surprising as this is). And I think he does realize now she cared about him the most out of all of them during the short time they interacted(both 1st and last episodes). Even between themselves(not counting Omega) I find most of the bad batch members to be cold and distant to each other. They feel less like a family than Rebels for example. And they aren’t even a “found family”(a trope everyone loves) but an actual one! And I get that they’re soldiers and supposed to be tough, I don’t expect them to share all “the feels”. I just can’t put my finger on it but something feels off. I agree with your previous post, the show doesn’t do a very good job showing or even telling they love each other.

Will Hunter and co only start caring about their brother again only after he leaves the empire?(assuming he does at some point). What about Disney’s prevailing theme and message that “family always love and care for each other no matter what”? I guess it’s “family always love and care for each other but only if you’re good guys making right choices”. There is no room for mistakes or wrong decisions. In the last episode everyone form the batch seemed to have given up on Crosshair(besides Omega). For now their attitude seems to be just “you’re not our enemy” and that’s that.

I realize Crosshair is a “bad guy” and consciously made his choice(and we know it’s the wrong one) but to me it felt like he thought he didn’t even had a choice or rather became so lost and confused he actually thought he chose the empire as “the lesser evil”(as in the less shitty choice out of all the other bad ones). We as audience have the benefit to know exactly how atrocious the empire really is but maybe Crosshair still doesn’t realize that.

So what exactly must Crosshair do to get back “in their good graces” as you say? Start saving “the good guys”? Save the bad batch multiple times? There is a popular opinion on how Crosshair can redeem himself. That he eventually heroically sacrifices himself to save them. I personally REALLY hope it’s NOT what’s going to happen but I heard so many people speculating his story is set up to be redemption=death. I know you mentioned you don’t want “Vader style redemption” either. Personally I think it would be a waste of a character who has a lot of potential. And I just think that the batch kind of don’t really deserve his sacrifice(maybe save for Omega) after how they never tried to save him themselves and how they treated him overall. Maybe he will risk his life to save Omega at some point and that will “prove” to Hunter he cares? Although he has already shown he cares by saving her(even if in Crosshair’s own words it’s just so they’re “even”). And the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove that he loves them, he already did that in episode 15 and made it clear he does care. He actually went to extreme by shooting his squad to prove his loyalty. What were the moments the batch demonstrated they care about him? Hunter saying “you never were our enemy” and taking his unconscious body to safety? To me Hunter “not leaving him behind” during bombardment felt more like guilt about the last time it happened and an obligation to Crosshair for helping them with droids, rather than them showing care. And I kinda of think if that was any random civilian(or anyone other than an enemy or a threat) they would carry them out too just because that’s what good guys do and not because it’s their brother. You also mentioned that minutes later Hunter snaps at him with “if you want to stay here and die, that’s your choice” which I agree can be interpreted in different ways. And I think it’s one more point to it being an obligation that in Hunter’s eyes is fulfilled now. He corrected his mistake of leaving a brother behind and saved him this time, now his guilt won’t burden him any longer.

Anyway, I can’t wait for season 2 and I appreciate you and all the anons sharing the tinfoil hat, interacting and speculating together. Those discussions have been a lot of fun!

TLDR: How do your think the relationship between the brothers will mend or evolve in the next season? Do you think S2 will improve in portraying the batch more as a family rather than a group of mercs doing missions together? What are your thoughts on the popular idea of Crosshair’s redemption by ultimate sacrifice? As in, how likely do you think this scenario is?

Anon, that is just wonderfully hilarious to me. Ah yes, the sunrise, a good cup o' joe, and the overly long character analysis of a snarky, fictional sniper. Exactly what everyone needs in the morning! 😆

You know, TBB is far from the first show I've watched where there's an obvious, emotional conclusion the creator wants the audience to come to—the squad all love each other Very Much—yet that conclusion isn't always well supported by the text. It creates this horribly awkward situation where you're going, "Yes, I'm fully aware of what the show wanted to do, but this reading, arguably, did not end up in the story itself. So what are we talking about here? The intention, or the execution?" It's like Schrödinger's Bad Batch where the group is simultaneously Very Loving and Very Distant depending on how much meta-aspects are influencing your reading: those authorial intentions, understanding of how found family tropes should work, fluff focused fics/fan art that color our understanding of the characters, etc. And, of course, whether someone saw TCW before they watched TBB. I personally wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "cold" towards one another—with Crosshair as an exception now—but there wasn't the level of bonding among the squad that I expected of a show called The Bad Batch. Especially compared to their arc in TCW. The other night I re-watched the season seven premiere and was struck not just by how much more the squad interacted with each other back then, but how those interactions added depth to their characters too. For example, Crosshair is the mean one, right? He's the one picking fights with the Regs? Well yeah... but it's also Wrecker. While they're trying to decide what to do with Cody injured, Jesse calls out Crosshair on his attitude—"You can't talk to Captain Rex like that!"—and Wrecker's immediate response is, "Says who?" and he hefts Jesse into the air. And then he just holds him there, clearly using his superior strength to do as he pleases, until Hunter (sounding pretty angry) tells him to put Jesse down. If Wrecker had put him into a more classically understood bullying position, like pinning him to the ground, it would probably read as less funny—less "Haha strong clone lifts Jesse up in the air!" and more "Oh shit, strong clone can do whatever the hell he wants to the Regs and few are able to stop him." It's such a quick moment, but it tells us a ton about Wrecker. That he's going to stick up for his brothers, no matter the context (Crosshair deserves to be called out). That he will gleefully assist Crosshair in bothering the Regs (something that is reinforced when he later throws the trays in the mess hall, after Hunter has already deescalated the situation). That he's likely been hurt by awful treatment from the Regs too. That he'll only listen to Hunter when it comes to backing off. Little of this work—that interplay among the squad that shows us new sides to them other than basic things like "Wrecker is the nice, happy brother"—exists in TBB.

Or, at least, little exists after Omega becomes an official member of the squad.

Because, as said previously, she becomes the focus. I don't mean that as a total criticism. As established, I love Omega. But if we're talking about why the squad can feel so distant from each other, I think she's the root cause, simply because the story became all about her relationships with the Batch, rather than the Batch's relationships with each other. Having dived headfirst into reading and writing fic, it occurred to me just how many of the bonding moments we love, the sort of stuff we'll see repeated in fics because we understand that this is where the story's emotional center is, are given to Omega in canon:

Someone is hurt and in need of comfort. Omega's emotional state is the focus + moments like her being worried over Hunter getting shot.

Someone needs to learn a new skill. Echo teaches Omega how to use her bow.

Someone reveals a skill they never knew they had before. Omega is a strategic genius and plays her last game with Hunter.

Someone is in serious danger and in need of rescue. Omega rescues the group from the slavers + is the most vocal about rescuing Hunter. (Which, again, is a pretty sharp contrast to the whole Crosshair situation.) Omega, in turn, needs rescuing from things like the decommission conveyor belt.

Similarly, someone is kidnapped and in need of rescue. Omega is kidnapped twice by bounty hunters and the Batch goes after her.

Someone saves another's life. Omega saves Crosshair from drowning.

Someone does something super sweet for another. Wrecker gives Omega her room. Omega gives Wrecker Lula.

A cute tradition is established between characters. Wrecker has his popcorn-esque candy sharing with Omega.

Someone hurts someone else and has to ask forgiveness. Wrecker is upset about nearly shooting Omega and they have that sweet moment together.

Note that most of these examples could have occurred between other Batch members, but didn't. Someone could have created a space for Echo on the ship too. Wrecker also could have apologized to Tech for choking him, etc. It's not that those moments shouldn't happen with Omega, just that there should be more of a balance across the whole season, especially for a show supposedly focused on the original squad. Additionally, it's not that cute bonding moments between the rest of the Batch don't exist. I love Hunter selling Echo off as a droid. I love Wrecker and Tech bickering while fixing the ship. I love the tug-of-war to save Wrecker from the sea monster. Yes, we do have moments... it's just that comparatively it feels pretty skewed in Omega's direction.

So, as a VERY long-winded way of answering your question, I think we need to fix the above in order to tackle Crosshair's redemption in season two. Now that we've had a full season focused on Omega, we need to strike a better balance among the rest of the squad moving forward. We need to re-established the "obvious" conclusion that the rest of the Batch loves Crosshair and that's done (in part) by establishing their love for one another too. To my mind, both goals go hand-in-hand, especially since you can develop their relationship with Crosshair and their relationships with each other simultaneously. Imagine if instead of just having Wrecker somewhat comically admit that he misses Crosshair (like he's dead and they can't go get him??), he and Tech had a serious conversation about why they can't get him back yet, despite very much wanting to. Imagine if Echo, the one who was rescued against all odds, got to scream at Hunter to go get Crosshair like Omega screamed at them to go back for Hunter. Imagine if we'd gotten more than a tiny arc in TCW to establish the Batch's dynamic with each other, providing a foundation for how they would each react to Crosshair's absence. Instead, what little we've got in TBB about Crosshair's relationship with his brothers is filtered through Omega: Omega's embarrassment that she knocked over Crosshair's case, Omega treating Crosshair's comm link like a toy, Omega's quest to save Hunter that just happened to involve Crosshair along the way.

Obviously, at this point we can't fix how the first season did things, but I think we can start patching over these issues in season two. It would be jarring—we'd still be 100% correct to ask where this "Brothers love you, support you, and will endlessly fight for you" theme was for Crosshair's entire time under the Empire's thumb... but I'd take an about-face into something better than not getting any improvement at all. It is frustrating though, especially for a show that I otherwise really, really enjoyed. For me, the issue isn't so much that the show made a mistake (since no show is perfect), but that the mistake is attached to such a foundational part of the franchise. Not just in terms of "SW is about hope and forgiveness" but the specific relationship most clones have with each other: a willingness to go above and beyond for their brothers. The focus on Omega aside, it's hard to believe in the family dynamic when one member of the family was so quickly and easily dismissed. I couldn't get invested in Hunter's rescue as much as I should have because rather than going, "Yes!! Save your brother!!!" my brain just kept going, "Lol where was this energy for Crosshair?" It messes with your reading of the whole story, so in order to fix that mistake going forward, we need to start seeing the bonds that only sometimes exist in season one. Show the guys expressing love for one another more consistently (in whatever way that might be—as you say, soldiers don't have to be all touchy-feely. Give us more moments like Wrecker supporting his brothers' bad habits) and then extend that to Crosshair. Which brother is going to demand that they fight for him? Which brother is going to acknowledge that they never tried to save him? Which brother is going to question this iffy statement about the chip? In order to buy into the family theme, Omega can't be the only one doing that emotional work.

Ideally, I wouldn't want Crosshair to go out of his way to prove that he's a good guy now. I mean, I obviously want him to stop helping the Empire and such, duh lol, but I'm personally not looking for a bunch of Extra Good Things directed at the Batch as a requirement for forgiveness. Simply because that would reinforce the idea that they're 100% Crosshair's victims, Crosshair is 100% the bad guy, and he's the only one who needs to do any work to fix this situation. Crosshair needs to stop doing bad things (working for Empire). But the Batch needs to start doing good things too (reaching out to him). Especially since Crosshair made a good play already, only to be met with glares and distrust. He saved Omega! And AZI! And none of them cared. So am I (is Crosshair) supposed to believe that saving one of their lives again will result in a different reaction? That doesn't make much sense. And no, his own life wasn't at risk when he did that, but does every antagonist need to die/nearly die to prove they're worth fighting for? As you say, he's already shown that he loves them, far more than they've shown the reverse. Every time Crosshair hurt them (attacking) it was while he was under the chip's influence. In contrast, the group has no "I was being controlled" excuse for when they hurt him (abandonment). Season two needs to acknowledge the Batch's responsibility in all this—and acknowledge that they're all victims of the Empire—in order to figure out an appropriate arc for Crosshair's redemption.

Right now, the issue is not Crosshair loving his brothers, the issue is how Crosshair chooses to express that love: trying to keep them safe and giving them a purpose in life by joining the organization that's clearly going to dominate the galaxy. The only way to fix that, now that his offer has been rejected, is for him to realize that a life on the run from the Empire, together, is a better option for everyone. And the only way for that to happen is for the Batch to seriously offer him a place with them again. They need to make the first move here. They need to fight for him. And yeah, I totally get that a lot of people don't like that because it's not "fair." He's the bad guy. He's with the fascist allegory. He's killed people and has therefore lost any right to compassion and effort from the good guys... but if that's the case, then we just have to accept that (within the story-world, not from a writing perspective) Crosshair is unlikely to ever come back from this. When people reach that kind of low, they rarely pull themselves out on their own. They need other people to help them do that. Help them a lot. But with the exception of Omega's reminder—which Crosshair can't believe due to how everyone else has treated him—they leave him alone and seem to expect him to fix himself first, then he gets their support. It needs to be the other way around. Support is what would allow him to become a good guy again, not "Well, you'll get our love when you're good again, not before." That's unlikely to occur and, as discussed, it doesn't take into account things like this bad guy life being forced on Crosshair at the start. If the story really wanted this to be a matter of ideological differences... then make it about ideological differences. Let Crosshair leave of his own free will, right at the start. Don't enslave him for half the season, have him realize he was abandoned, imply all that brainwashing, give him no realistic way out, and then punish him for not doing the right thing. This isn't a situation where someone went bad for the hell of it—the story isn't asking us to feel compassion for, say, the Admiral—it's a situation where Crosshair was controlled and now can't see a way out. That context allows for the Batch, the good guys, to fight for him without the audience thinking the show is just excusing that behavior. They should have been fighting from the start, but since they didn't, I hope we at least start seeing that in season two.

Ultimately though... I don't really expect all of the above. The more balanced dynamics and having the Batch fight for Crosshair rather than Crosshair going it alone... I wouldn't want to bet any money on us getting it, just because these are things that should have been established in season one and would have been more easy to pull off in season one. (If the Batch wouldn't fight for Crosshair while he was literally under the Empire's control, why would they fight now when he's supposedly acting of his own free will? It's backwards in terms of the emotional effort involved.) But again, it could happen! I'd be very pleased if it did happen, despite the jarring change. I don't want to make it sound like I think they're going to write off Crosshair entirely. Far from it, I think there are too many details like his sad looks for that, to say nothing of Omega's compassion. But the execution of getting him on Team Good Guys again might be preeeetty bumpy. I expect it to revolve around Crosshair's sins and Crosshair's redemption, even if what I would like is balancing that with Crosshair's loss of agency, the Batch's mistakes, and their own redemption towards him.

Honestly though, I just hope that whatever happens happens soon. It's a personal preference, absolutely, but after a season of Crosshair as the antagonist, I'm ready for him to be back with the group, making the Empire (and bounty hunters) the primary enemy. Whether his return happens through a mutual acknowledgement of mistakes, or through Crosshair being depicted as the only one in the wrong who has to do something big to be forgiven... just get him back with the squad lol. Because if the writing isn't going to delve into that nuance, then the longer he remains unforgiven, the longer some of us have to watch a series while going, "Wait, wait, wait, I really don't agree with how you're painting this picture."

#TBB #The Bad Batch #SW #Star Wars #mymetas #long post

7 notes · View notes

scullydubois · 4 years ago

Text

Only the Light: Ch. 10

Missy accompanies Scully to a doctor's appointment. Afterward, Missy confronts Scully about her feelings for Mulder, and Scully slips-up on the phone.

-----------------------------

She digs through her suitcase, searching for the business card she tucked in the pocket with her underwear. A sharp edge penetrates her skin, stings immediately. Her fingers close around the paper card and pull it out. A thin red cut traces the length of her middle finger, blood begging to seep out. She ignores it and grabs the phone off her nightstand, plugging in the number for the Aubrey Motel.

As she’s dialing, she realizes that it’s already past lunchtime in DC, and even though Missouri is an hour behind, there’s no way Mulder is in his room. She lets it ring anyway, then asks the man who answers for room 12. He patches her through, and sure enough, the line rings until it gives up.

Impressed by her own newfound patience, Scully hangs up and dials Mulder’s cell instead. She’s not exactly sure why she didn’t just do this in the first place; maybe she likes the idea of Mulder being stationary without her, stuck in his room like a lost little boy with no one to guide him. Her heart sinks when she thinks about Mulder gallivanting around Aubrey, solving the case like there’s nothing to it, like he could have been doing it by himself all this time. She wants him to need her. Naturally, she is ashamed of this desire.

She hits the call button and waits while an invisible force shoots across states and connects her to her partner. She does not have to wait long; he answers after the first ring.

“Hello?” He sounds the same as always. Simultaneously there and drifting, one body split between two minds.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

“Hey Scully.” There is a lightness in his voice now, like a balloon cut free of its tether. He is smiling, she thinks...She hopes.

“I just wanted to let you know I made it home safely…” She trails off, not wanting to stop talking to him, but finding herself with nothing else to say.

“I’m glad, Scully.” He always addresses her by name more when they are apart. This is a comfort to both of them. “How’s Melissa?”

Scully looks through the doorway, confirming that her sister is nowhere near to cause any antics. “She’s alright.” She deals in half-truths. “We’re going to the doctor later to get an x-ray, but I think it’s just a sprain.”

“Well, keep me updated. I found a lead on the case--Harry Cokely, the suspect of one of the 1945 murders. I’m on my way to see him. He’s been out of jail since ‘93.”

Scully gulps. “Are you alone?”

“Uh-huh.” He senses her tension through the line. “But I’ll be fine, Scully, he’s an old geezer now. What kind of agent am I if I can’t defend myself against an eighty year old?”

“You could have taken BJ with you.”

“And put a pregnant woman in the line of fire? I’ll be fine, Scully. They wouldn’t have let him out if he were still a danger.”

“Okay, Mulder.” This is not what she means, but it has already been a long day, and there is too much left of it to get into an argument with him.

“I might be able to come back tomorrow,” she blurts out, as if saying it will make it more true. “...I’d like to come back tomorrow.”

“Take all the time you need, Scully. I’ve got this.”

She knows he is trying to be accommodating-- though he so rarely is--but his casual manner confirms her worst fears about her own superfluity. “I want to work, Mulder, you know that.”

“I’m not gonna stop you.” Then, his voice uneven, suspecting but not willing to confront--”Just take care of Melissa--and yourself--okay?”

She nods into the phone. “I will.” She is staring at the barrel of Mulder’s metaphorical gun, knowing he won’t shoot, almost wishing he would. Bleeding out feels like the simple solution. “Bye, Mulder.”

She is leaving so soon, he thinks, grateful to have had her voice accompanying him on the trip. “Bye, Scully. Call the motel tonight, will you?”

“Alright.” She kills the line, each extra second another thorn in her side, a lie allowed to linger. Sin multiplying.

She stands there, clasping the phone in her hand and feeling like a stranger to herself. Her sister thought she should tell him before she flew a thousand miles and let an hour fall between them, and she disobeyed. What Melissa didn’t understand was that vulnerability is not a word in her and Mulder’s shared language. There’s no way to spell out the situation, even if she had wanted to. And she didn’t want to at the time. Or rather, she had wanted to so badly that it was dangerous, that she knew she risked more pain by telling than by withholding. She would have had to invent new words in their language, expand its bounds, and who knows what would come next. Give someone the language to express their feelings, and they will say them. And what then?

She is scared of her own feelings--and his too--because she knows that admitting means losing, somewhere down the road, and she doesn’t ever want to be without him. If she had never met him, she would never have to live without him. This is the gun that is always pressed to her head. She and Mulder are both holding the trigger.

She doesn’t know if he has such a gun against his temple, thinks that maybe he doesn’t, hopes so at least. There have been others for him, she knows this. Phoebe and...well, Phoebe’s the only one she’s met, and she wasn’t that impressive. But he’s a good-looking guy, and a good guy at that, and the whispers of a dark-haired woman who broke his heart float up and down the hallways of the Hoover building. He doesn’t tell, and Scully won’t ask because she worries that the mystery woman is the gun he holds against his own head.

She sets the phone back in its receiver, tired of thinking about guns and triggers and brains blown out. For now, she is in one piece--she’s pretty sure--and she would like to stay that way for as long as her soul will let her.

Her sister calls from down the hallway. “Dana, are you ready?”

Scully managed to book a last-minute appointment with her OB-GYN, thanks to Missy’s insistence that it was an emergency. Personally, she wouldn’t use such a strong word--I mean, it’s not like she’s hemorrhaging or anything. It’s the absence of blood that’s the problem. But there are tests, scans, and probing of the like that can be done, and once Scully admitted this her sister would not drop the issue. Off to every woman’s favorite place they go.

--------

The waiting room is a stepping stone, a purgatory, a beginning and an ending rolled into one. She has been here before, many times. In the past, it felt like an inconvenience, not a threat.

She makes an appointment every year, does everything exactly as she is supposed to do in between, and still she is here and scared. She is careful as careful comes, as prepared as one petite woman alone in the world can be. She can dislocate a jaw, strike a man’s legs out from under him, break a nose. And yet, and yet, and yet...Who first uttered “fairness,” thought it existed on this Earth?

Even so, the consolation of knowing lingers in the distance. Like the minutes between calling 911 and the ambulance arriving. Help is on the way. The nightmare will end, or it will settle in. Lucky or unlucky. Win or lose.

Scully is not sure what she wants to hear. Three tests is quite definitive; pregnancy is unlikely. And what else is there? That her cycle has been thrown off by stress, that it’ll come back on its own time, don’t worry about it? That’s no comfort. She doesn’t want something to be wrong with her, but she knows something’s not right, and what’s worse than knowing that you don’t know? She and Mulder have lived in that hell for years. She can handle mysteries of the outside world, but what a cruel trick for her own body to blockade her.

Missy nudges her from the adjacent vinyl seat, elbow meeting bicep. “What are you thinking about?”

“How my mind doesn’t know what’s going on with my own body,” Scully replies dryly. “I mean, I know I have a tendency to close myself off, but I’ve cloistered myself so much I no longer know what I am.”

Melissa frowns. “Don’t you mean who? Who you are?”

“No.” Scully shakes her head, looks at her lap. In her darkest thoughts and most blistering nightmares, she is not human anymore. They desecrate her, ravage her body, and leave a memento in her skin, a touch of them. It’s so vivid it might be a memory. Mulder wants an alien; he may have one. That would be ironic, huh?

Can you learn to believe in yourself when you become something you never thought existed?

Can you still believe in God?

Every job she has dreamed of doing involves solving. Knowing enough to know what you don’t know, then figuring that out. Taking the pencil lines, shading them in. Seeking and finding and never wondering why. She cannot keep this up. There has got to be a meaning.

It is not enough, anymore, to simply wonder for the sake of wondering. To cast light over the darkness because you are tired of the darkness. Why? Is she doing it for Mulder, for the traumatized twelve-year boy locked inside him? Is she doing it for herself, fending off the fallibility, reconciling her belief with proof so that she can get off her own back? Or is she doing it because she was told to, because she is still the daddy’s girl who wants to please?

Twenty-nine years, and she is still coming to terms with herself. We are all our own x-file. We are all taking ourselves apart and piecing ourselves back together and looking for meaning and losing our minds.

Missy reaches over the wooden arm of the seat and pats Scully’s hand. Scully is reminded that she hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility that her sister is a mind-reader.

“Dana?” a nurse calls. Her first name feels so secondary that Scully feels certain they’re calling someone else.

“Right here!” Missy responds, getting up and pulling her sister along with her. Scully tugs her sister’s sleeve like a child might, wonders if Missy has ever considered motherhood.

Once in the corridor, they separate. The nurse takes Scully to get her vitals checked, while Melissa seeks out waiting room D, where the nurse’s flat voice--already tired from hours on the job--told her to wait.

It is not long before her sister joins her there.

“How was it?” Missy asks before Dana even manages to sit down.

Scully shrugs. She turns her left hand to show the pink bandaid on her index finger. “My iron levels are above average.”

“That’s not serious, right?”

“No, it’s usually a good thing.”

They sit quietly, listening to the staticky alt rock song coming through the speakers. They are alone in this particular area, but nurses and doctors bustle just around the corner from them.

Scully regards her sister with a latent curiosity. “Have you ever thought about having children?”

Missy turns to her, laughs. “What?”

Scully is somewhat perturbed by her sister’s nonchalant reaction. “Do you want to be a mother?” she reiterates. “It’s not something we’ve talked about since we were kids, so I was wondering.”

“If my life unfolds that way, then surely I think I’d enjoy it. But I’m not prioritizing it.”

“Ahh.” Her sister has always had a particular reverence for destiny.

“And besides,” Missy continues, “it could be hard, you know, with Trinity and all.”

It takes Scully a moment to realize what she means. “Oh.” That’s something she’s never had to worry about herself. She runs her finger along the grooves of her bandaid, feels her heart clench up for her sister. “There’s always adoption.”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s a long, drawn-out process from what I’ve heard.”

“Mmm.” Scully nods, wondering how two women could have two such conflicting problems.

Before she can voice the irony of this, another nurse pops out from around the corner, peers at a clipboard. “Dana Scully?” Her voice is bright and chipper.

“That’s me,” Scully says, raising a hand to show the bandaid, her battle scar.

“I’ll show you to your room.”

Missy pats Dana’s shoulder as she stands up. “I’ll stay here. Come get me if you need me.”

“Okay,” Scully breathes, grateful to be given her space yet to know support is right around the corner.

----------------

For someone that went to medical school--and enjoyed it, for that matter--Scully always feels much too out of place in a gynecology office. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. In textbook diagrams, in wall art, in her own flesh. Yet the 3D model of the reproductive system, the color-coded illustration of the uterus, and the various pamphlets on everything from STDs to birth control to what to expect postnatal smother her, serving as a fresh reminder that Catholicism’s tendency to repress haunts her still. She’s more bothered by her involuntary discomfort than what she sees.

Dr. Zapolsky enters, easing some of Scully’s nerves immediately. Tall and dark-skinned, she has been practicing medicine for 20 years, and Scully has been seeing her since she moved to Washington. She can be intimidating if you don’t know her, but she’s honest and extremely competent, two things Scully requires of her doctors. And herself.

“Hello, Dana.” Scully sits up straighter as the woman’s voice hits her eardrums. She’s admired Dr. Zapolsky for years, seeing her as an exemplary figure, someone that might have been a mentor to her had she put her medical degree to work. “What can I do for you today?”

There are few things Scully hates as much as being the patient. If she’s the patient, that means she has failed at being her own doctor. That means she didn’t know--and worse--didn’t think she could figure it out on her own.

She wrings her hands. “My cycle is over a week late, which is very concerning considering that it’s always been timely. I’ve been having migraines and nausea and nightmares, and I just know something is wrong.”

Dr. Zapolsky drops Scully’s file on the counter. “Well, the pregnancy portion of your urine test came back negative.”

“I took three drugstore pregnancy tests too, and they were all negative. That’s why I’m here.”

“Have you had any notable lifestyle changes over the past few months?” Dr. Zapolsky asks. “Anything out of the ordinary? Stress is a major contributor to fluctuations in the menstrual cycle, as I’m sure you know.”

Scully nods, gathers herself. Dr. Zapolsky is oblivious to the rabbithole she has just fallen into. “I was, um, abducted, about eight weeks ago, and I have no memory of it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dana.” Dr. Zapolsky wheels her stool beside the medical chair. “We have a bit of catching up to do.”

“Yes,” Scully looks at her feet. They dangle a few inches above the tile like a child’s. Nothing new. She glances back at her doctor. “There isn’t much to say. I don’t know anything about what happened.”

“Well, tell me what you do know.” Then, seeing the apprehension on Scully’s face--”I’m not trying to play therapist, I just want to understand.”

Scully blinks slowly to keep from crying. It goes like this, it always does: she can manage the trauma until she has to say it out loud. This is a story no one wants to be in, but everyone wants to hear.

“I was taken by a man involved in a case that I worked on. Well, that my partner worked on, actually. I got involved--and long and complicated story short--the man broke into my apartment, bound my wrists and ankles, and stuffed me in his trunk. That’s the part I do remember. After the trunk, it’s all a blur really.”

The doctor furrows her brow. “How were you found?”

“I wasn’t found, I was returned. To the hospital. None of the staff had any idea how I got there, and I was bathed and cleaned by my abductors so no trace evidence was collected.”

“So no rape kit was done, then?”

Scully shakes her head.

The doctor uncrosses her legs, recrosses them with the opposite leg on top. “How long were you missing?”

“About a month...My mother bought me a gravestone, she didn’t think I would be found.” This is a detail she has never spoken out loud. Saying it feels like letting air out of an over-inflated balloon.

“I’m so sorry, Dana.” Dr. Zapolsky lifts a hand, then puts it back in her lap. “May I hug you?” Scully nods and lets herself be embraced, though she does not feel it necessary. “That sounds like a horrific ordeal.”

Scully shrugs as best she can with Dr. Zapolsky’s arms wrapped around her. “It comes with the job.” Always modest about her suffering, she is.

Dr. Zapolsky speaks into Scully’s ear. “No, I don’t think it does.”

The doctor lets go. Scully doesn’t say anything. She curls the fingers of her left hand around her right wrist and squeezes hard enough to be certain that it’ll leave a mark.

Dr. Zapolsky slides her stool back over to the counter, flips through Scully’s file.

“I’d say the best course of action is to start with a blood test. I’ll check a few hormone levels---follicle-stimulating, anti-mullerian, luteinizing. That’ll give some insight into your pituitary gland function and your egg reserve.”

Scully nods along. Those hormones are complicated names she barely remembers, but she trusts it’s the right course of action.

“With that, we can determine whether this is a symptom of a larger problem, or if it’s simply a result of the stress you’ve been under. It should only take a couple days to get the results back.”

Scully nods, bites her lip. More waiting.

“Have you been seeing a therapist by any chance?” Dr. Zapolsky asks.

Scully shakes her head. Dr. Zapolsky should know her better than that.

“Well, I highly recommend it even to those who have not gone through any trauma. And for a survivor, it can truly be life-changing.”

A survivor. What is she, a war hero? That word is fitting for her father, who lived on the sea and sought eternal rest there. Not her.

“Thank you, but I’m okay.” Scully cannot meet her doctor’s glance.

“If you need any referrals, I can give you some names.” Dr. Zapolsky is just trying to help, Scully knows this, but this is not the help she came here for.

“The FBI has an on-site psychologist,” she says to close the subject.

“Oh, what a wonderful resource.”

“Most definitely.” Scully smiles weakly and ducks her head, ready to get out of here.

-------

There are many things she is afraid of, but physical pain is not one of them. The unknown, slow but certain death--these are the things that spook Dana Scully. When you’ve spent years being told that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you are prepared to suffer for honor.

This is simply the prick of a needle, a relinquishing. Doctors used to prescribe it as the cure for any ailment, believing it to vanquish toxins from the body. Med school would have been a lot simpler if that were true.

She watches the blood flow out of her veins and into the vial. Some people can’t look; she can’t look away. Missy is seated in the chair next to her, chin resting in her palm after her offer to hold Scully’s hand was rejected. She traces the path of her sister’s blue eyes as they slide from her arm to the vial in the nurse’s hand. Dana has never been afraid to look--that’s the problem.

In an instant, it is done. The nurse smooths a bandage over Scully’s skin, tells her they will call with the results in a few days. And then it is two sisters, going, going, gone.

----------

They have a pleasant ride home, a soft and sisterly evening in. The prospect of Dana going back to Aubrey in the morning never even comes up, much to Melissa’s relief. Perhaps the illusion of normalcy her sister pedals in her head has finally given way to their unreal reality. They don’t waste a moment on the uncertainty circling them, instead curling up on the couch with popcorn and gummy bears for another Golden Girls marathon.

“Which one do you think Mulder is?” Missy asks during a slow moment in the episode.

“Huh?” Scully laughs. “Which Golden Girl, you mean?”

“Uh-huh.” Missy pops a red gummy in her mouth. “Or is he too interesting to be pinned down?” she teases, mimicking the swoony non-answer he gave about Scully some weeks ago.

“I don’t know honestly,” she says, pushing a blanket out of her lap. “I’m not sure that I know him well enough to decide.”

“You’re kidding.” Missy glares at her. Clearly her sister has not dropped the illusion after all.

“No, I’m not,” Scully intones, getting up to refill the gummy bear bowl. “And that reminds me, he wanted me to call.” She glances at the clock. It’s half past 8 there, so surely Mulder is back in his motel room.

Missy isn’t letting her off the hook that easily. She follows her sister into the kitchen. “Dana, I guarantee that you know him better than anyone else in the world. If they conducted a test on every single living human being’s knowledge of Fox Mulder, you would get the highest score.”

“Knowledge isn’t the same as understanding,” Scully murmurs, dumping the remaining gummy bears into the bowl.

“I’ll give you that, but you know what? You do understand him, you’re just too afraid to confront it.”

Scully wants to recoil, but freezes in place instead. It’s just as dramatic but gives less away. After a breath, she crumples the plastic bag into a ball and dunks it swiftly into the wastebasket.

She speaks rigidly, each word cutting through the air. “If I understood him, there would be no fear.”

Missy feels this in her chest--the aching, the truth in her sister’s voice. Dana is as close to crying as she ever gets. Missy strides over, clasps her sister’s hands in hers. “You don’t have to be scared.” She pulls her little sister in, squeezes her heart to Dana’s own. “He loves you. And I’m not talking about in a romantic way--I don’t know, maybe--but just in general. He loves you, and he would never hurt you.”

Scully’s eyes are glassy with tears now, but Melissa cannot see this in the midst of their hug. “Haven’t you ever been hurt by someone who loves you?” She says into Missy’s ear. “We never mean it, but it happens. It happens all the time.”

“And then you apologize, and you go on. Being hurt once doesn’t mean being hurt forever.”

“It can.” Scully pulls away, wipes her cheeks before her sister can overanalyze.

“It won’t, not with Mulder. I know enough about him to know that.” She brushes her sister’s hair out of her face. “If anyone was going to cut off the relationship, it would be you.”

“Wha--” Scully gives up the protest. She is partial to burning bridges that are prone to collapse, a last-ditch attempt at dignity. Yet Mulder doesn’t strike her as a bridge that would burn even if she set it aflame. Maybe that’s worse though, it prolongs the struggle.

“Hurting him would be worse than getting hurt,” Scully mutters.

“Loving him would be better than not loving him,” Melissa responds.

“The correct phrasing of that argument is ‘loving him would be better than being loved,’ if you wanted to copy my logic.” Scully gets curt and analytical when she’s annoyed.

“Hmm, well, consider that too.”

Their eyes meet and Scully can tell that neither one of them is going to win. “I’ve got to call him before it gets too late.” They both know who he is. She turns on her heels and heads for her room.

--------

He didn’t pick up the first time she called, which scared her more than she’s willing to admit. She sat cross-legged on her bed until the phone rang again about twenty minutes later, until she heard his voice on the other line.

“Hey Scully, sorry, I was out wrapping up the case.”

“Wrapping up?” She doesn’t even bother to say hello. “It’s over?”

“Open and shut...or, err, something like that.”

“What happened?” Her voice strains for no reason. She clears her throat.

“I’ll catch you up some other time,” he says breezily. “How’s Melissa doing?”

For a moment, Scully forgets her lie and tries to figure out why he’s asking about her sister and not her. Then--”Oh! She’s okay, yeah, it was a sprain like we suspected. Nothing broken on the x-ray. She can just about walk normally now, I think she’ll be off crutches by tomorrow.” Embellish, embellish, embellish. Missy had taught her to lie in the 6th grade, and she finally had some use for that knowledge.

“That’s great! I’m flying back tomorrow morning, I can be at the office by 10 if you wanna meet me there.”

“Will you tell me about the case? And BJ? How is she?”

“I’ll...I’ll tell you that tomorrow, Scully.” There’s a bit of gravel in his voice, which Scully has noticed comes out when he’s tired or holding back.

“Fine. Should I assume that by 10, you mean 10:30?”

“Well, you know how the line at the Dulles Chick-fil-A gets,” he wisecracks.

Something goes wrong between her brain and her tongue as she goes to wrap up the conversation. “Alright, 10:30. Love you, bye.”

Mulder makes a noise like a stifled laugh or a cough that couldn’t be held in. “What was that, Scully?”

Her face is flushed, and she’s thankful he can’t see it. “Sorry, I’ve been talking to Missy on the phone a lot lately. Habit.” The voice flowing out of her sounds calm and collected, like that was just an honest mistake. In a way it was...a much too honest one that has made her anything but calm.

“Oh, is that who you say that to?” he teases.

She laughs. Surely he couldn’t think there’s anyone else, could he?

“Just Missy, and maybe my mom.” She says it like a promise. He hears it like a prayer. Unusual, for both of them.

“Bye, Mulder,” she says, ushering any sentimentality away.

“Bye, Scully. Hate you. Oh, sorry--that’s what I say to my dad on the phone.”

Scully giggles into the phone. She’s still giggling as she sets the phone back on the hook.

Even after the call flat-lines, Mulder holds the phone against his ear like it’s a seashell echoing Scully’s giggle back to him.

#thank u thank u thank u for reading #and your comments in the tags #i LOVE reading those #pls keep it up <3 #only the light fic #the x-files #the x-files fanfic #txf #fox mulder #dana scully #melissa scully #missy & scully fic #mine

48 notes · View notes

sparksflamesembersashes · 4 years ago

Text

Random musings on 10.18 Find Me

Other Carylers have spoken about the episode and their interpretations of it and what it means for Caryl and their future and I've been sharing those and don't have that much to add to what’s already been discussed. Others have written well thought out and detailed analyses and interpretations and said it way better than I ever could. Most of them have been writing about Caryl forever and I started less than a year ago. I do want to speak to some technical stuff and a few other things, since I never do know when to shut up. Spoilers for 10.18 below the cut.

Brief talk on techie stuff... Wow, the cinematography in the plus six are really taking it up a notch. 10.18 has some of the most gorgeous images in the history of the show. The colors, the framing, and Caryl; separated by a stretch of water that's a literal stand-in for the divide between them, in an episode stuffed with signs and symbols and parallels. "Find Me" has some of the most visually breathtaking shots in the history of TWD... and do you know why? Because the plus six were filmed on digital cameras, for the first time in the history of a show that has always been shot on 16 millimeter film. Turns out, the digital process not only has fewer "touch points" (thanks for nothing, COVID) but it's also cheaper, faster, and easier on the environment.

TWD almost switched to digital for Season 2, and while AK claims now that they can still give it that classic TWD look, in a 2019 interview posted on comicbook.com, she said they were committed to shooting on film to preserve it's look and feel (confirming that film and digital are noticeably not created equal, an opinion/truth they are apparently backing off of, now). If the new episodes look different, its because they are. I am torn between which style I prefer. The grainy, Kodak-y type images of TWD as shot on film are increasingly rare on any screen, simultaneously nostalgic and beautiful and born of toxicity. The gallons of chemicals used in developing standard film are not environmentally friendly and probably need to go the way of the dinosaur.

Digital is wonderful in its own ways, so minute in its details, and can easily capture images and light conditions otherwise incredibly difficult to duplicate on actual film... But digital doesn't look the same, it doesn't feel the same, in the way that CD's and vinyl records don't sound the same. Purists curl their lip at the new and improved version of the medium, but the truth is,most people don't notice the differences.

TWD has always used the sun and the moon to their best visual advantage and both the celestial backdrops show up in "Find Me." The sun filtering through the trees onto Daryl or in his general direction has made repeat appearances in S10. Is this a metaphor for his finally finding his enlightenment? (Or is it nothing deeper than AMC uses the light to make everything look as cool as possible?)

10.18 shows us more of Daryl's soul (in a single episode) than we've seen before. His character goes through all sorts of colors, screaming in the rainstorm, grimacing as puppy Dog licks his face, meeting and spending time with this strange, lonely, gruff, almost mirror reflection of himself, someone who is grieving and angry and alone. Fighting with Carol! A real fight, but an honest and not altogether unhealthy one. You gotta work through to acceptance and let go of the past before you can look forward to a future, and these two have enough trauma issues between them to fill a psychiatric journal. They’ve a long, arduous road ahead of them, but they WILL reach their destination. Together.

Daryl throwing the fish at Leah's door and Leah throwing the fish at Daryl are my favorite moments in the episode. I laughed out loud. I did not get the impression that they only encountered each other once every several months, I took it that the time jumps measured the progression of their relationship, i.e. that it took that long for them to warm up to each other. When Daryl did go to stay at Leah's, it was literally out of necessity, as he was getting frost bitten in the woods and probably would have lost at least a digit or two had he remained in his camp.

For the first time, I didn't really enjoy the Caryl banter? (Please don't hurt me.) There was a sadness, a tension, and a sense of loss there I just couldn't shake. Carol was trying to run away from the horrors of the Whisperer's aftermath, and Daryl knew it, and he was annoyed by it. Carol's attempts at lightheartedness seemed forced. I feel like Daryl is a man with a whole lot on his mind at this point, and that Carol is a woman who is habitually trying not to think about the real stuff if she can avoid it. She jokes and banters but she's almost too cheerful... or maybe it just seems that way because Daryl's so grim. Not grim as in we're-all-facing-our-end-of-days-doom grim, but not in a laughing mood where Carol's concerned. He thinks she's running again, and seeing Leah's cabin reminds him that Leah probably ran from him, too. He lost both his brothers, Rick and Merle. Daryl has abandonment issues and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility going back as far as we know. He loses people and can't find them again, no matter how much he searches.

Revisiting Leah's cabin, the devastation of Alexandria, and everything that's been building up over, about, and because of Carol has pressurized within Daryl till he finally takes a shot, and who can blame him? But he also shows his development and maturity by trying to express his disappointment with controlled words of frustration (compared to camp- or barn-rage Daryl in S2), telling Carol exactly what it is she does that's widening the chasm between them.

Carol to Daryl early in the episode "I don't want to lose you because you can't figure out when to stop," and Daryl to Carol "That's on you. 'Cause you don't know when to stop.") Daryl doesn't know when to stop searching for his lost brother and blaming himself for things, Carol didn't know when to stop her revenge-fueled pursuit of Alpha. Daryl also tells Carol "That's all that matters. You being right." (after she says she was right to go after and destroy Alpha to avenge her son.) At the end of the ep., Carol says it again: "I was right" (this time about their luck having run out), then she goes to fix the door.

So now Caryl know and have established what gets each other's goat. That could be a good thing, but tptb will undoubtedly attempt to convince us its a bad thing,, ya think? Neither of the characters knowing when to stop and their mutual annoyance over the fact could be something the show runners milk for a while.

Î wanted to know whether Daryl went back to the cabin after leaving his note, to see whether Leah had returned to it, or not. I want to know what Carol did with the note. Did she take it with her, or did she put it back? They never showed us. Daryl seemed anxious and tense about her finding it, and I did not miss the symbolism of Carol being the woman who eventually finds the note Daryl left behind years ago: "I belong with you. Find me." I mean, how perfect is that?

Contrary to spoilery bullshit stinking up the Twittersphere, Carol did not seem exactly “upset” at finding the note, though clearly she was sad. She knew exactly what the note was, so Daryl must’ve told her about it, that he left it. Maybe he didn't tell her exactly what it said or everything about Leah, but my impression was that she realized what it was and where they were, and it was all yesterday's news to her. Seeing the note seemed to make her sad for Daryl because she knows Daryl can't handle losing people, and that he punishes himself for failing to help or save people by pushing everybody away and isolating.

Leah didn't so much choose to be there in the cabin as she ran for her life from a dangerous situation and the cabin was just the place where she and her bitten son ended up.

So many yawning gaps in the Leah storyline. How often did they see each other? Did Daryl move in with her toward the end of their relationship? I felt like he did after the time she found him freezing in the woods, but that he'd leave for days to go look for Rick, or hunt, or who tf knows. Maybe he'd leave to see or meet Carol. Carol knew about Leah, but when? Before, or after it was happening? Why is that important? I just want to know when he told her. Really hoping they didn’t leave things purposely vague so they can fill in the gaps to screw with us later.

Timing is everything. Like, how much time passed between Leah telling Daryl to choose, and the time Carol told Daryl she couldn't keep visiting? Or did he leave Leah's cabin and return to it that same day? Which would imply Leah abandoned Daryl practically the instant he walked out the door following her ultimatum. It seems like Daryl was gone a while, it was dark when Leah told him to choose, and daylight in the scene with Carol at his camp and when he was walking in the woods. It could have been days. That makes a difference. Leah was obviously not Daryl's first choice, no matter that he ran back to her in the end.

The fact that Carol knew about Daryl's relationship with Leah is a crafty move on the show runner's part because we can't really be pissed at Daryl if Carol knew about it the whole time and was cool with it.... but we all know now that Daryl didn't tell her everything.

No one is talking about how Leah obviously abandoned Dog, she left him shut in the damn cabin for who knows how long after she left. And she DID leave. The cabin looked abandoned when Daryl left the note. He obviously went searching for her with Dog, but for how long?

Not to say there was nothing between them, but I never felt for an instant that Leah had Daryl's heart, or that he ever offered it up to her in the first place, but I am also 100% sure that’s because I’m ride-or-die for Caryl and can’t bear to entertain the thought. No matter what else they were, Daryl and Leah are isolated, damaged, traumatized people who wanted someone to hold on to. Someone to try and forget with. It's not like there were a lot of other people around to choose from.

So did Leah just leave Dog behind because the memories associated with him were too painful? (i.e. he was born on the day Leah's son died) Or did she feel that Daryl needed the companionship and gambled that Daryl would drop by soon and take him in? It really bothers me that she just split and left the dog locked in the cabin like that.

Grateful they didn't show us anything extra of Daryl seeming to genuinely give a shit, tbh. (Throwing a fish at someone's door, having sex with them, sleeping in their bed or eating their cooking doesn't necessarily constitute giving a shit in this world, just saying.) That was both refreshing (cuz u know, Caryl is endgame), and kind of tragic. I felt like Daryl was rather emotionally detached the entire time, but that Leah was maybe falling in love with him. Not in a good way, but in a possessive, demanding, all-or-nothing type of way.

How very very clever of AMC to leave us with all these ambiguities. So much room for interpretation, so many gaps to never be filled in. Bastards. On the bright side, all these holes in the story and missing material provide endless new opportunities for fanfic writers like me who can't break free of the bonds of canon. So, yay, I guess?

I am sad to give up the virgin Daryl trope, I was beginning to think that one was ours in canon to keep, but you know, it is what it is. It was a good, long run while it lasted, and I'm grateful we got to write inexperienced Daryl fics while we could still entertain the fantasy that Daryl was actually inexperienced. So, R.I.P. virgin Daryl. I'm not as upset about his getting laid as I thought I'd be (although it was incredibly underhanded, AMC, to pull this shit so very late in the game, there better be a good reason for it).

All the Leah thing means to me right now is that our man has probably picked up some skills during his time with her, and Carol's gonna be the ultimate beneficiary. Plus, Daryl's evolved over the years from throwing a fish at a woman's door to delivering her dinner on a tray with a flower, so...progress was made, even if he didn't start out with the woman we wish he had. (News Flash: The love of his life was unavailable and actually married to another man at the time, so there's that.)

There are a staggering number of Caryllels in this episode. Someone once said here that Kang loves her symbolism and they weren't wrong. No matter what's to come, we can be confident about where this road ends. At this point in TWD, to not eventually give us Caryl canon would be the absolute greatest trolling of a fandom in the history of trolling fandoms, and besides, we're getting a spin-off.

Another thing, the fact that Rick and Leah both basically disappeared on him shines a bright light on Daryl's determination to stick to Carol like glue in 10A and B. He was terrified that she was going to disappear on him, too.

What happened to the Caryl fandom following the spoilers wasn't worth it. How many times have we freaked out over spoilers? You think we'd learn. And you KNOW we are valued because AMC went so very far out of their way to provide the vaguest-ever depiction of a sexual encounter for Daryl. Remember the Eugene spying scene with Abe and Rosita, guys? Shane and Lori screwing on the ground in the woods? They could really have tortured us, and they chose to be kind.

I'm looking forward to "Diverged." Honestly, I could give a shit about most of the other characters, but they'll have to make do for us over the next couple of weeks. Just about the time 10.18's been dissected and interpreted to death, Caryl will reappear on our screens and mess with our hearts and minds some more. I can't wait.

Thank you for coming to my rant, and Caryl on!

#caryl rant #caryl spoilers

12 notes · View notes

frangipanilove · 5 years ago

Text

TRUNK RESURRECTION; PART 2

In part 1 of the Trunk Resurrection post I discussed how TPTB are careful to take any oppertunity to make creative choises that points to TRUNKS is any shape, form or fashion. Car trunks and tree trunks. Human torsos or elephant trunks, it doesnt matter. If it’s a trunk, it can be used by TPTB to say something about TRUNK symbolism.

In Part 2 I’m going to try to explain why this is so important for TD.

ETA: here’s a link to Part 1:

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/611940721067474944/trunk-resurrection-part-one

I’ve already mentioned that many of us, myself included, believe that after “Coda”, a situation somehow arose, where TF had to leave Beth behind. It wasn’t by choise, we imagine that it was a matter of survival. The general consensus is that they were surprised by a massive horde, and couldn’t get away fast enough. They had to leave Beth in order to survive themselves, and they put her in the trunk of a car to protect her from getting eaten by the walker horde.

Like I mentioned in part 1, when Beth and Daryl hid from the horde in the trunk of a car in 4x12 “Still”, it was a forshadow of how she’d later be hid in the trunk of a car to avoid getting eaten. And similarly; when we watched the sequence of the abandoned cars from 5x10 “Them”, it served as a callback to events that happened off camera in those missing 17 days.

In “Them”, we watched Maggie find a car with a locked trunk. She located the keys and got it opened, and inside she of course found a beautiful, tragic figure. TPTB at one point confirmed that the Trunk Walker was supposed to represent Beth, and it’s one of the most haunting scenes of the entire series in my opinion.

And as I explained in Part 1 of this post, there is no shortage of exemples where TPTB use every trick in the book to bring attention to a trunk in some shape or form.

In Part 2 I’m going to analyse the symbolism around about seven specific instances where CARS and TRUNKS were front and center, both in a symbolical sense as well as in a literal sense.

And I’ll start with Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 1: OFFICER LICARI’S DODGE MAGNUM: THE ORIGINAL BLUE TRUNK  

The reason I call this a Blue Trunk doesn’t have much to do with the actual color of the car, even though it’s dark blue or maybe back. When I say BLUE TRUNK, it has to do with the fact that it’s a car that belonged to the Grady cops, specifically it belonged to Officer Licari. Therefore, it’s a “Blue Trunk”.

The Blue Clues ultimately points to some sort of police reference. Because Beth at one point wore the Sheriff's hat and was named «The New Sheriff In Town», she’s a part of the Blue Clues. In fact, you could probably say she’s in the center of it.

But there are also other police officers worth taking notice of, and like I said, Grady cop Licari is one of them. I’m going to explain why shortly, but first let’s revisit a scene from 5x15 «Try». Daryl and Aaron try to catch Buttons The Horse, but they fail miserably. Buttons falls prey to a walker horde, and gets eaten in the most gruesome way. Daryl and Aaron can only watch in horror.

However, as they were trying to save Buttons, TPTB served us up a few very suspicious scenes, such as the one where Aaron trips over a ram (!) that’s laying on top of a walker. If that doesn't seem super random to you, then I don't know what will. And it gets crazier. The walker manages to grab a hold of Aarons foot, almost managing to bite it, but fortunately, Daryl comes to the rescue. And Aaron gets free.

Now, a few things about this scene. I will get to the foot/boot part of it later. It’s obviously something we’ve seen time after time, season after season, and I believe I have a pretty decent interpretation of the foot/boot symbolism. But first things first.

That ram struck me as possibly the pinnacle of randomness! Even for a show that likes to put random details into random places, the ram from 5x15 was just too wild to not be significant. You just KNOW it hides massive clues.

And it did.

If you remember back to 5x7 «Crossed», we saw a close-up of the back of Licari’s Dodge Magnum as Rick chased after Officer Bob.

And there it was! The logo of the Dodge car brand is a ram! Their signature model is even called Dodge Ram!

The logo specifically sits on the back of the car, on the trunk, you could procably say, even if its not called that of this particular car. The whole sequence with the walker trapped under a ram that grabs Aaron’s foot, specifically points to the back of Officer Licari’s car.

That’s not the only suspicious thing about that car, @twdmusicboxmystery has written several posts about the cars at Grady, their licence plates and other weird coincidences.

https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/127651055999/getkath-twdmusicboxmystery-the-foreshadowing

https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/142791336629/the-aftermath-of-grady-and-evidence-for-it

Also, in 5x7 «Crossed, Sasha and Tyreese actually discussed Sasha’s sorrow over losing Bob right in front of the trunk/back of Licari’s Dodge Magnum. In fact, it is not entirely unrealistic to speculate that if Beth was left in the trunk of a car, it could actually be that she was left in this specific car, Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 2: THE JEEP CHEROKEE FROM 6X6 «ALWAYS ACCOUNTABLE»

In 10A, we watched a scene where Carol and Daryl were throwing acorns on a can. Carol found a «double-capper», and gave it to Daryl for luck. And look, I’m trying to stay out of ship wars. I’m a Bethyler and a Carol fan simultaneously, and while I’m aware that these acorn scenes have become significant for C@rylers, I respectfully want to offer my interpretation of it. It involves Beth (no surprise there). It also ties into the tree/three/trunk symbolism. I’ll explain how below.

Remember back to s2. Sophia was missing, and Daryl refused to give up on finding her alive. He took Andrea out to search for her in the woods, and while they were walking, he shared a story from his childhood. As a child, he lived under tremendous parental neglect. His father was gone, partying with some waitress, and Merle was doing another stint in juvie.

Daryl somehow got lost in the woods, and was gone for nine days before he found his way back. And he was fine, so in Daryl’s mind there was no reason Sophia couldn't also be fine. The only injury he sustained during those nine days was a rash due to wiping his ass with Poison Oak.

The interesting thing with this scene is that it’s the first time we get an «oak» reference. We get it in combination with a «missing/lost/gone girl reference, and interestingly we also get it in combination with an «ass» reference (Toilet Paper Theory, but that’s a post for a different day). What we actually can take from this, is that the acorn as a symbol is synonymous with the Cherokee Rose from season 2.

Remember the legend of the Trail Of Tears. The Cherokee Rose grew where the tears of the mothers had fallen, to provide «faith and hope» to people who had lost their loved ones. Daryl gave Carol a Cherokee Rose, sitting in a beer bottle, to offer her “hope and faith” that they’d find Sophia. Let’s break down the different parts of the symbolism here. The Cherokee Rose. The beer bottle. The Poison Oak. The acorn.

Acorns grow on Oak trees, so obviously they are synonymous. The beer bottle represents the beer/bear symbolism, which points to Beth through the Ursa Major/Ursa Menor symbolism (or the Big and Little Dipper if you will). I’ve talked a lot about that in several other posts.

In 6x6 «Always Accountable», we saw a Cherokee Rose growing on the back of a mossy walker. Daryl was able to kill it, and perhaps the sight of the Cherokee Rose inspired him to do the right thing by returning the insulin to Tina, Dwight and Sherry.

And it was an amazing thing to see another Cherokee Rose so long after the first one, and here's how we can tell that it is about Beth; it’s about hope and faith in that one day you’ll once again see your missing loved ones that you’ve lost along the way.

Both Sophia and Beth are part of «the missing girl» theme. We know what ultimately happened to Sophia, but we never saw what ultimately happened to Beth. The Cherokee Rose from 6x6 «AA» is as much a beacon of hope to us, the audience, as it is to Daryl.

But what most people don’t realize, is that there was a second Cherokee reference in that episode. Not a Cherokee Rose, but a Jeep Cherokee! And it ties right into the Trunk Theory. At one point we see Sasha and Abraham crouching besides a car, having a discussion on Daryl’s whereabouts. Their choice of words are important in order to properly understand this scene, pay close attention! Abraham says he believes that Daryl has abandoned them, because that’s what he did earlier in the episode. Sasha argues that he came BACK. He RETURNED!

It’s important that they’re having this particular conversation in itself, but the real significance is WHERE they’re having it: Besides the Jeep Cherokee!

The Cherokee Rose symbol was always there to give hope and faith to people who had lost loved ones. It’s not some token of love between Daryl And Carol. It’s something that represents hope and faith after having lost people. And in this particular case, the «hope» presents itself as «the trunk of a car»! It ties right into Team Delusional’s theories of Beth somehow surviving in relation to the trunk of a car. It represents “resurrection”!

So the initial Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle from s2 was always about Sophia and the missing/lost/gone girl symbolism, the Cherokee Rose on the walker’s back from 6x6 «AA» was about Beth, and we know that because of the convo Abe and Sasha has having while sitting next to it. They talk about getting left behind, about Daryl coming back, RETURNING, and finally, we see how Abe asks how they are gonna find Daryl. Sasha replies that they're not! They're gonna let Daryl find them. Then she plants her BOOT in the mud, the camera lingers on it for a moment. Then she says «Daryl is a tracker», they’re gonna let him track them down. And we see her boot print in the mud. I’ll talk more about that boot print later.

And we do know that the Trunk Survival theme applies specifically to Beth, because we did see her hide in a trunk with Daryl in «Still». We also saw a Beth-walker in the trunk of a car in 5x10 “Them», that was confirmed by TPTB to represent Beth. The “trunk theme” is inextricably linked to Beth. And here we also see it along with a Cherokee Rose and a Jeep Cherokee. And Sasha’s boot!

As far as the Cherokee Rose as a symbol is concerned, remember that Daryl placed a Cherokee Rose on Carol’s (EMPTY) grave back in season 3. Daryl believed that Carol was dead, lost somewhere in the tombs of the prison.

From a symbolism standpoint, the important thing is that the Cherokee Rose delivered on its symbolical promise. Its purpose is to provide faith and hope for people who has lost loved ones. In the case of Carol from s3, she was eventually found alive. And that’s why the Cherokee Rose is an important symbol for TD. Thats why it’s interesting that there was a Cherokee Rose in 6x6 “AA”, and that a Jeep Cherokee was involved in a scene where Abe and Sasha were talking about “being left behind”. And ultimatly, when Sasha placed her bootprint in the mud next to the car, it was a direct reference to the trunk/baggage compartment of the car! I will explain the boot/trunk connection shortly, but keep it in mind until then!

And the acorns? They represent Daryls convo with Andrea from s2, when they were out searching for a missing/lost/gone girl. Daryl’s Poison Oak story is evidence that surviving being «lost» truly is possible! When Carol gives Daryl the «double-capper acorn» in «Bonds», they’ve just had a conversation about Connie. And Now Connie (and Magna) is the Missing Girl, but most likely she’ll be OK. No way to tell for sure, because the symbolism is about being lost/missing/gone. Daryl was lost as a child and he turned out fine. Sophia resurfaced as a walker, but she resurfaced. Carol was found alive when she went missing in the tombs. Henry became a beheaded walker, but at least he wasn’t lost, never to be seen again. We don’t know yet what will happen to Connie, and Beth is still missing. But the acorns are synonymous with the Cherokee Rose, and represents «Hope and Faith.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 3: SILVER WING/MERLE HAGGARD In 5x4 «Slabtown» we heard Dr. Edwards say that he’d found a patient under a bridge along with a Merle Haggard tape and two packets of Bisquick. Then, in 6x10 «The Next World» we see two posters of a fictional brand of cigarettes; «Silver Wings».

«Silver Wings» is a well known Merle Haggard song, and therefore it’s natural to think of the two posters as Merle Haggard references, and that they tie into the MH reference from «Slabtown».

(Also, there was another Merle Haggard song, «Mama Tried» being played in FTWD 4x2 «Another Day At The Diamond», and I’ll do a separate post on that one day. Hopefully.)

6x10 starts off with Daryl and Rick leaving ASZ to go on a scavenging mission, hoping to score some food, (and toothpaste, on Michonne’s request). They find a food truck in a Sorghum barn, but they also find a Jesus. Not Christ, but Paul Rovia. But for symbolism purposes, that works wonderfully.

As they leave ASZ, TPTB give us an excellent shot of the back of the car they’re driving. It’s definitely a Chrysler. We see the back of the car a few times, we also see how they stop and reverse the car, driving back into our view. An interesting creative choice by TPTB, where everything is about the back of the Chrysler. Or the trunk...

Why am I going on about the back of this particular Chrysler? Because the logo of the Chrysler brand cars are affectionately called «Silver Wings»...

And the logos are typically located on the back of the car, such as in this shot from 6x10:

We see the silver wings on the trunk of the car.

Also worth mentioning is that due to unforeseen events involving meeting Jesus, Jesus strealing their food truck, and other complications, the Chrysler got left behind. They planned to go back for it later, but it’s certainly interesting what type of car they eventually chose to ride back to ASZ in, with an unconscious Jesus in the back seat. According to the page walkingdead.fandom.com they chose to return to ASZ in a Jeep Cherokee..

A Jeep Cherokee....with Jesus in the backseat...

Oh, and in Part 1 I explained how the symbol “tree” in certain ways refers to the Cross of Christ, and therefore ultimately means “resurrection”. The symbol “tree” is of course also synonymous with the symbol “trunk”, both in the sense of “tree trunk” and in the sense of “car trunk”. We see an interesting illustration of that in 6x10, when Daryl says he rather would’ve left Jesus (Paul Rovia, not Christ) up in a tree, than bringing him home to ASZ. That is literally TPTB confirming the tree = cross connection. “Jesus up in a tree” is a TWD translation for “Cross of Christ”. And by confirming the tree = cross connection, they are at the same time confirming the trunk = resurrection part of the equation. And now is a good time to remind y’all of how Beth is a Christ figure!

TRUNK RESURRECTION 4: RICHONNE’S ROMANTIC ROADTRIP IN 7X12 «SAY YES»

In 7x12 «Say Yes», Rick and Michonne are out scavenging for guns. They come across an overrun carnival, and it is here they have the peculiar «Something serious happened here, these are serious rounds, there might be serious guns here» convo.

In an attempt to get guns off of zombified soldiers, they decide to use a car. And here is where symbolism galore ensues. First, Rick tries to remove a soldier-walker that’s jammed through the windshield. Grabbing his foot, his whole boot with foot comes off.

Later, when they try to push the car to where they’d ideally want it, Michonne must suddenly seek shelter from a walker accidentally shooting around him at random. She dives into the trunk of the car for protection, and as such survives the random bullets.

I’m not the first to point out this sequence. It was always obvious to TD that this was symbolical, and TD has always interpreted it as a representation of how things went down post-Coda. They eventually get out through the sunroof. I don’t have much to add to it, except one thing: the meaning of all the weird foot/boot references we’ve had over the years. Hang on, I’ll get to that in a minute...

TRUNK RESURRECTION 5: THE GREEN JAGUAR FROM 8X11

In my «Morningstar» post, I elaborated on episode 10x11 a little, and how tremendously important I expect it to be for symbolism reasons.

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/190946439370/episode-10x11-morningstar-sirius-the-star-that

(At the time of posting this, I haven’t actually watched it yet, as TWD airs Monday nights here, and it’s still only early afternoon.)

One of the reasons I expect it to be huge on Sirius symbolism, is that Noah’s t-shirt, with the “one one” text, kind of pointed towards it. And while it primarily pointed towards 8x2 and the Blue Heron painting, there was a huge symbolical takeaway from 8x11 as well. I didn’t know the full magnitude of the symbolism back then, but it’s becoming increasingly clear what an important episode 8x11 was.

It has perhaps gone somewhat under the radar, the symbolism in it is the kind that is slowly starting to shine as the seasons progress and we’re given a larger part of the picture.

We remember how Dr. Carson and FG escaped from the Sanctuary, and FG was in a less than stellar condition. He suffered from some kind of infection, and Dr. Carson was seriously concerned that he’d maybe end up loosing his eyesight. They find this dilapidated cabin in the woods, and go in searching for antibiotics.

Which they find, so FG only loses one eye, and this is how he becomes a Sirius figure.

Episode 8x11 turned out to be a virtual treasure trove of symbolism. The radio equipment (a Sirius reference due to the connotation to Sirius Satellite Radio), the «Sirius piggy-bank» parallel to the Sirius piggyback from «Alone». I talked about these things in in my recent post.

But there’s more.

In the opening minutes of the episode, we watch a walker, stuck in an animal trap, clawing his way towards the broken down car in which FG and Dr. Carson are sitting.

This episode is symbolism galore from the get-go. Guess what kind of car they’re driving?

A green Jaguar. And during the opening minutes we view the car from the walker’s point of view, and what we see, is the trunk!

Jaguars are cats, remember, and cats have nine lives. That’s the symbolic takeaway. The trunk represents survival through the nine lives symbolism. The trunk represents the way many of us believes Beth most likely survived. She was put in a trunk, which protected her from the approaching walker horde. When they went back to get her, she was «just gone». And this episode, 8x11, is filled to the brim with Beth-specific survival symbolism.

There’s the radio equipment, representing Sirius The Dog Star, the star that disappears from the night sky for some time but returns before dawn.

There’s the Sirius piggy-bank.

There’s the ham radio references (a reference to violet the pig, explained in more detail here:

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/183736635005/sirius-and-the-north-star-or-pigs-feet-and-frosty

There’s a suspicious clock! I’ve discussed it with fellow theorists, and they’ve come up with a few great interpretations. However I do feel like its significant that the hands of the clock points towards the 6 and the 3, which could indicate that it’s a reference to Glenns death fake out episode 6x3.

The clock appears as they find the antibiotics thas FG needs, and Dr. Carson says “This man saved your life!”, referring to the dead man that presumably lived there before. The potential 6x3 reference of the clock and Dr. Carsons statement suggests that the symbolic takeaway is something to do with survival.

And this is all related to Beth because she’s in the center of the Sirius symbolism!

A 6:30 clock was pivotal in Noah’s t-shirt theory, which ultimately pointed towards 8x2 (when we found the Blue Heron painting), but because of the «one one» text written on Noah’s T-shirt, I was aware that it could potentially also point towards 8x11. You could say there’s a 6x3 reference in both ends of the Noah's t-shirt theory. There’s a 6x3 reference in the episode that introduces the theory, and there’s a 6x3 reference in the episode that fulfills and bookends the theory.

There’s even a couple of «serious/Sirius» mentions. They’re sitting on the trunk of the green Jaguar while Dr. Carson examines FG’s eyesight. Dr. Carson is “Siriusly” worried.

We've seen Jadis paint a blue cat. Jaguars are cats. Cats have nine lives. We’ve also seen her sculpt a large replica of the Jaguar logo cat. There are plenty of blue clues around Jadis, and Jadis/Anne was the one who ultimately saved Rick. And the symbolism around Rick is symbolism we also see around Beth, so if Rick is alive, so is Beth.

The fact that the Jaguar is green just ties even closer to Beth, because her last name is Greene! And Beth is part of the “blue” symbolism because “blue” ultimately refers to police. Beth is part of that because she’s the New Sheriff In Town.

Ultimately, this episode tells us that the Sirius symbolism is still in play because FG becomes a one-eyed Sirius figure. It confirms that “radio” still is a Sirius symbol, there’s a Sirius mention as FG and Dr. Carson are sitting on the trunk of the Jaguar (”Sirius” reference in combination with “nine lives” reference). There are also plenty of references to «Alone», through» the animal trap callbacks. And keep in mind; Beth got her boot caught in an animal trap in «Alone». Dr. Carson got his foot caught in an animal trap in 8x11. Il’l get to the “boot” symbolism shortly, it’s important, so keep it in mind.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 6: THE FORD MUSTANG ON THE HIGHWAY IN S2

When Sophia went missing 2x1, they prepared some foods and drinks for her on the hood of a Ford Mustang in case she made it back after they’d moved on to the Greene Farm. 

She didn’t come back, but if she had, she would have found everything she needed to survive, along with a sign saying «we’ll come back every day». If she’d made her way back there, she likely would’ve survived. That Ford Mustang represented her way to survival. It was a «missing girl survival-kit». Unfortunately Sophia didn’t survive, but the Ford Mustang represents the first time we see the entanglement between the “horse” symbolism, the “car/trunk” symbolism and the “missing girl” symbolism.

Symbolically, there are a couple of interesting things happening here simultaneously.  It’s a car, and it has a trunk, so there’s that.  The name of the car, «Mustang», refers to a species of wild horses, that are known to be fast, smart and difficult to catch.

 It’s a yellow car. Remember Beth’s yellow polo shirt, that covered her upper body/trunk? A very weird sentence to write, but  I explained in Part 1 that TPTB use anything that has a connotation to the word “trunk”, also the human torso/trunk.

Remember the keychain from 5x10, the one that has a yellow seahorse on it? It’s a reference to Sophias “survival kit-car”, the yellow Ford Mustang . It’s a reference to Buttons The Horse from 5x15 that died horribly. However, there was a ram involved that scene, and symbolically the ram ties Buttons to Sophia’s survival kit-car, via the trunk of Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

When Buttons The Horse died, symbolically it’s ok because the ram points to the trunk of Licari’s Dodge Magnum, and trunks ultimately symbolize resurrection.  “Horse” symbolism is tied to the “resurrection” symbolism through the “trunk” symbolism. It’s complex because it’s so intertwined, but that is how it works. And speaking of horses; remember this sign?

Right next to it, Morgan found a horse!

This all calls back to the yellow Ford Mustang that was equipped to help Sophia survive, and to the yellow seahorse keychain in the shape of a “3″, that eventually unlocked the trunk from 5x10 “Them”. The message for us is one of “survival”, or “resurrection”.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 7: THE JEEP CHEROKEE FROM «CODA» AND “SLABTOWN”.

Because yes! There actually was a Jeep Cherokee in 5x8 «Coda» as well! We didn’t really see it much, it was basically just sitting there in the parking lot outside Grady the whole time. There was that one scene in «Slabtown», when Beth and Noah almost succeeded in escaping. Beth is running full speed towards freedom, then slows to make sure that Noah is following her, and as she slows, we get a glimpse of this black Jeep Cherokee with a white cross on the back window, sitting next to Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

That Jeep Cherokee was there during «Coda» as well, and whether or not it is the actual car they left her in, it is undoubtedly a reference to the Cherokee Rose in the beer bottle from season 2, the one that symbolized “hope and faith”in the search for Sophia. It was a reference to Carol’s EMPTY grave from season 3, and because we see another Cherokee Rose in 6x6 «AA», along with another Jeep Cherokee, we can assume that the Jeep Cherokee from «Slabtown» and «Coda» are also there to provide faith and hope!

We can see it in the bottom left corner of this heartbreaking shot that ended the episode.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN “BOOTS”, “PIKES” AND “TRUNKS”

In the “Tree Trunk Theory”, I’ve explained why the words «cross» and «tree» are so intertwined. As I mentioned, it originates from the earliest written versions of the New Testament, and the fact that they were written in Greek. They used mainly two words for “cross”. One was the greek word for “tree” (and by extension “wood”), and another word they used was was «stavros» which literally translates to «pike»! “Wooden pike”.

Isn’t that just fascinating? While we know absolutely nothing about where Henry was buried, we know that the pike where his head was found has become his «grave marker», his “cross”. Not in a literal sense, but that’s what the pike represents to everyone. To us, the audience, and to Carol and the rest of the characters . The pikes are reminders of the gruesome killings of these innocent people.

In 10x5 something interesting took place. We saw that the border pikes had been moved, and Carol was not particularly happy about it. She was not on her best behavior. She was reckless and egotistical, something which almost caused her to step right into a bear trap.

It was a big, powerful trap. I could have taken her foot off, but fotunately Daryl came to her rescue.

Now, I’ve written plenty on why Bear symbolism is linked to Beth (it’s through the Ursa Major/Menor star constellations, or as you say in North America, the Big and Little Dipper). Also, I’m sure every member of TD remembers vividly how Beth got her ankle caught in a smaller animal trap in 4x13 «Alone». And I'm sure every member of TD took notice of the bear trap in 10x5. We all recognized it as a Beth symbol.

So what did Daryl do, after saving Carol from getting her foot hacked off by the bear trap?

He set off the trap by putting the pike through it! The wooden pike, the pike that is a symbolism synonym for «cross»! The wooden pike that acts as a grave marker for Beth-Proxy Extraordinarie; Henry.

And here comes the juicy part.

In US English, it’s normal to refer to the rear storage compartment of a car as «the trunk»

However, in other parts of the English speaking world, such as for instance the UK and Australia, the appropriate term for the baggage compartment of a car is actually….

The «BOOT»!

With that in mind, think back to some of the numerous foot/boot/dismembered limb symbolism we’ve seen so consistently over the years on TWD and even FTWD. I’ve mentioned a fair few of the exemples in this two-part post, but there are of course too many to recount.

Think of Beth getting her BOOT caught in the animal trap in 4x13 «Alone». Think about Rick pulling off the foot (with the BOOT) of the soldier in 7x12, and Michonne jumping into the trunk to escape the walkers. Think of Jadis stripping Rick naked save for his boxers/trunks, and then stealing his BOOTS. Then think of Daryl, setting off the bear trap around the pike that represents the Cross of Christ, that represents death and resurrection. Think back to «Crossed», when FG escaped his church and got his BOOT pierced by a nail! He was symbolically crucified in that scene. It was a stigmata reference! On the wall behind him there was written «You'll burn for this», which in terms of plot referred to how he saved himself at the expense of his parish. But on a symbolical level, that marked FG as a future Sirius figure (burn/fire is a Sirius symbol because Sirius means «scorching/glowing»). And sure enough, in 8x11, an episode that was foreshadowed by Noah's t-shirt, FG lost his eyesight on one eye, making him a Sirius figure like the one-eyed dog from «Alone» and the «dog with a star in one eye» from Robert Frost’s poems.

Take a look at the “boot” symbolism we’ve seen over the years with fresh eyes, imagine what a scene means if the feet/shoes/boots we see are references to the trunk that Beth was placed in, the trunk that means “resurrection”, the trunk that is synonomous with “tree trunk” and therefore “cross”, as in “The Cross Of Christ”.

Need more evidence? Here we have a scene from “Consumed”, where Carol has an unfortunate encounter with a 1995 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon. It’s a car that has wooden panels on the sides, and they’re popularily called “Woody Wagons”. After she has been run over by the Grady cops, they place her on a gurney and puts her....in the back of the car! The wood reference of a Woody Wagon represents the wood/tree/cross and therefore “resurrection”. The back of the car, where Carol was placed, of course represents “the trunk”. This whole scene represents how even a dramatic accident like Carol’s can end with “resurrection”, if the proper symbolism is applied.

And finally there’s this:

This is of course Morgan, from 5x1 “No Sanctuary”. I’m sure it’s obvious where I’m going with this. It’s a tree. With an X (a cross). We actually see...guess how many...yes, three (3) tree crosses.

We also see Morgan in 5x8 “Coda”, literally seconds after we’ve watched Beth “die”. And we also see the same X (cross) on the threes in “Coda”.

It is resurrection symbolism on top of resurrection symbolism.

#Team Delusional #team defiance #team beth lives #bethyl #Beth Greene #BETH LIVES #beth is alive #beth and daryl #beth x daryl #daryl x beth

41 notes · View notes